The very best of luck

Whether repetitive, colourful or potentially whiffy, a sportstar’s rituals, charms and peculiar idiosyncrasies are all part of ‘getting in the zone’, observes Harry Pearson

- Harry Pearson

If you want a few seats to yourself on an aeroplane, book your flight on Friday the 13th. Although many deny being superstitious, they don’t like tempting fate. Even those who are as down to earth as badgers generally have little things they avoid for ill fortune—walking under ladders, opening umbrellas indoors—or seek out for good (who doesn't see a rainbow and instinctively think there's a pot of gold waiting for them somewhere’). The days of the talismanic rabbit foot and the lucky sprig of heather may have faded, but most of us still instinctively fret about a broken mirror or try to save a money spider from a watery demise in the bath. We assure ourselves it’s only ‘a silly bit of nonsense’; yet, for at least one section of society, it’s considerably more than that. When it comes to worrying about omens and portents, nobody gets quite so worked up as our sportsmen and women.

If National Hunt trainer Henrietta Knight sees hay on the way to a race, she feels so certain the day is ruined she has to fight the urge to turn around and head straight home (she is not at all bothered by straw). Meanwhile, 1984 Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning jockey Phil Tuck always saluted magpies when in the saddle to avoid misfortune and even named his house “The Magpies’ as an added precaution. The saluting of magpies is common among jockeys, who traditionally throw a new set of silks onto the ground before stamping on them. The feeling, evidently, is that ‘now you have hit the deck, I won't have to’.

Sports psychologists argue that such behaviour is all about feeling in charge. No matter how hard they've trained and practised, there is so much in any race or game that is beyond the competitor's control that it inevitably causes anxiety. Performing a ritual or carrying a charm (such as cricketer Denis Compton’s silver four-leafed clover) gives a feeling of influence over the rub of the green.