Naughty Boys should use a jockey in future

TV VIEW:THAT WENT well. By the second last race of the day there was only a euro left in the betting kitty, so it seemed appropriate enough to put every last cent of it on Banjaxed Girl. Did she win? What do you think?

There were too many lowpoints to recount, but the nadir, perhaps, was the 2.40 when Adams Island – owned, incidentally, by Naughty Boys Partnership – won by a full horse and two thirds of a tail from Bensalem and Carole’s Legacy.

A brilliant race the little topper ran too, sneaking up on the rails when the other pair only had eyes for each other.

The catch, of course, was that Adams Island had misplaced his jockey a few furlongs back, and in horse racing, for those of you not well up on these things, they have this wacky rule where a horse doesn’t win a horse race unless it has a jockey on board. Then why isn’t it called jockey racing?

And why did our commentator repeatedly refer to Adams Island as “a loose horse”? Why should he be robbed of his personal identity simply because he wasn’t giving a lift to a jockey?

The man on the bookies’ complaints line explained, while somewhat provocatively referring to our winner as the “loose horse”, that Adams Island would have had a bit of an advantage having no weight on his back, although he conceded when challenged that he had yet to meet a jockey who weighed more than a feather.

So, morally at least, we had a winner, but that was after losing the opening two races. John McCririck and his assistant, “Female”, as good as guaranteed us that favourite Cue Card would get our Festival off to a money-spinning start.

And even though the return on our euro wager wouldn’t be astronomical, a win’s a win’s a win, as Arsenal used to be able to say.

So, how did Cue Card do? Did you see that telly ad yesterday showing horses running backwards?

At least Ruby Walsh won, so that was something. “I’m looking forward to Ruby having a good week and Katie having a safe week,” his Da Ted had said before the race, which probably earned him a right puck from Katie, but that’s just how Das are.

Race two. “I think I’ve made a bit of a mess of it because I probably should have run him in the Jewson Novices’ Chase,” conceded Medermit’s trainer Alan King. Well, a half-apology is better than none at all.

The moral of the story, though, was not to base betting selections on the fact that the horse’s jockey has a lovely orangey shirt with fashionably stripey sleeves. Form, form, form, lesson learnt.

Next, the big one. The Champion Hurdle. John Francome cooed over the sight of the majestic Hurricane Fly in the parade ring, but then noted that “he’s wearing ear plugs!” “That’s to block out the sound of McCririck ,” Ted didn’t say, although he was probably mad tempted.

“Mille Chief wouldn’t win any beauty contests,” added Francome, so that was a sympathetic euro on Mille Chief. Not Hurricane Fly? Why allow patriotism cloud your betting judgement?

Soon after. “There is proper Irish madness going on here,” said Alice Plunkett as the crowd Ole-Oled Hurricane Fly, Ruby Walsh and Willie Mullins in to the winner’s enclosure.

With patriotic zeal, then, while bellowing A Nation Once Again, the next euro went on Enda Bolger and Nina Carberry's Garde Champetre for the 4.0.

“Each way?”

“Huh, all or nothing baby!”

Nothing it was, our euro finishing second. “Garde Champetre has run a cracker again under a big weight,” said Ted, which the man on the Channel 4 complaints line assured us wasn’t a slight on the jockey, and that Ted was not, in fact, the Andy Gray of horse racing.

Sizing Australia, then, held off Garde Champetre, Ted noting that through the race his – Sizing Australia’s, not Ted’s – “auld ears were pricky”. This, apparently, is a good thing, so we’ll bear it in mind before making today’s bets.

And confident we are too. Luckily we happened to tune in to At The Races’ Cheltenham phone-in after the day’s racing was done, just in time to hear Peter from Canterbury give Matt his sure-fired tip for day two.

“Willie Mullins’ So Young, it’s the apple of his eye,” said Peter, boasting that Tracksuit Dave agreed with him, which was, apparently, a very, very good thing.

“Yeah,” said Matt, “I was talking to Peter Townend and he said he would marry So Young if it was a girl of about 18.”

“Eh, right,” said Peter from Canterbury.

A euro on So Young it is, then. Once more unto the betting breach.

If she ends up a Banjaxed loose horse of a Girl then we’ll join Adams Island in the pub and give up on Cheltenham entirely. Well, until day three.