MEMORIES OF BEETLES AND TOOTHACHE

Robert Cooper, Sky Sports Racing’s roving reporter, looks back on his first Cheltenham Festival...and offers some tipping advice

- Robert Cooper

Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast,” warbled Bob Dylan many years ago and how truly the great minstrel’s words resonate amidst a truly extraordinary 12 months. But, like the first snowdrop of spring, the Cheltenham Festival arrives on our doorsteps once again, inevitable but this year stripped of its exuberance, taking place behind locked gates, empty grandstands and the absence of the most important ingredient of such an event (apart from the horses), cheering humanity – I wonder will the TV broadcasters play out an archived roar of approval when the tapes are raised for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle?

Continuity has been largely absent from our lives for too long. Saturday March 14, 2020 was a landmark day in my role as a roving reporter for Sky Sports Racing. I was on duty at Fontwell Park, less than 24 hours after AL BOUM PHOTO had won his second Gold Cup in front of a full house at Prestbury Park. Within a week all sporting activities had been curtailed, and it was a full three months until I pumped up the tyres on the motor, setting sail for Wolverhampton racecourse. And now barely a week passes without a trip to Dunstall Park. Even if the racing isn’t always the most thrilling, it’s worth the journey for the food. Wolverhampton cuisine definitely wins my Winter Award for Best Hot Meals – Thai Green Curry, Meat Pies with mash and mushy peas, home made soups – a little effort and ingenuity goes a long way to currying favour with the punters – well, stable staff and the broadcast crew.

Forgetting the pies for a moment, it’s worth restating that the BHA (British Horseracing Authority) and HRI (Horseracing Ireland) have performed magnificently to keep the industry’s bandwagon rolling.