Horses

As the last Democratic primary in 2008 was wrapping up and it became clear Hillary Clinton would not be the party’s presidential nominee, Barack Obama ignored the political analysis of CNN in favour of ESPN on the campaign bus TV.

When he eventually emerged, after watching a documentary on the platinum-plated Lakers-Celtics rivalry of the 1980s, he was inspired to quote the words of the great Magic Johnson: “We don’t cut down the nets for the conference championship,” he shrugged, as all around him celebrated victory.

Well yesterday, letting the relative success of St Patrick’s Day with the bookies go straight to my head, I clipped down the nets, turned off the lights and locked up the gymnasium.

Where before, like Obama in the White House, I surrounded myself with the great minds and expertise — for Warren Buffet and Jimmy Carter read Ruby Walsh and Pat Keane — yesterday I decided to trust my instincts. Because obviously making 46.50 from the turf accountants on Wednesday meant I now had equine instincts.

As you can imagine, reader, it did not start well.

In the Triumph Hurdle at 1.30pm I stuck with Ruby on Advisor with a cheeky 2.50 each way. Confused, I watched as my old friend failure returned to my threshold.

The impressive Soldatino came in on top, with Barry Geraghty. Not the best start. But as Brendan Behan observed “every cripple has his own way of walking” and mine was to limp on unaided, blinkers on, and filtering out the white noise of expert opinion.

Rock Noir (picked for the Cork sporting connotations — The Rockies if mentor Roman Polanski worwearing the bainisteoir bib on the sideline maybe?) went the way of city hurling on Leeside. Maybe I should’ve backed Newtownshandrum Noir…

The less said about Tell Masini in the 2.40pm — a tip I was texted by a colleague who was in the pub wearing a Denman t-shirt, admittedly — the better. But then at last, to our own Larry Bird and Magic Johnson pay-per-view fare. And God knows how my work-mate sat through the Gold Cup next — Denman versus Kauto Star — bedecked in his No 5 paraphernalia in a pub in Waterford. I like to think someone was wearing a Kauto pullover and another an Imperial Commander cowboy hat.

I boast a long record of underdogism. When Kelly and Roche posters wallpapered kids’ bedrooms in the 80s, I was on the lookout for unglamorous water carrier Martin Earley.

I was the kid who watched Wrestlemania III in a kilt and sporran combo and shouted for bad boy Rowdy Roddy Piper, as Hulk Hogan and Andre ‘The Giant’ took top billing. I voted for Lisbon the first time around. And yesterday the unfancied outsider took the plaudits, edging the brave Denman while Kauto Star endured a rough day at the office.
So we’re up to €30 and back in the game.

In the 4.00, I had a feeling about Dun Doire with Nina Carberry but it was just indigestion. The next was a simple pick: Meath All Star. If this horse was to perform like the rough magic of Sean Boylan’s All Star teams of the 80s and early 90s, then we’d have to come back for four or five re-runs — but he’d win in the end. Unfortunately, this time the Royal-sounding horse failed to take the throne.

And so like Larry Bird, we get out a little battered and with a bad back, but still on top. The sports editor’s cobwebby wallet is now one 20 note lighter, and unlike most punters this week, the Irish Examiner’s mugs came out on top in our joust with the layers.

Mugs 3 Bookies 1

In Papillon, the epic 1973 film about a pair of criminals sent to French Guiana for a life of hard labour, one of the many mistakes Steve McQueen’s captors make is to give him a butterfly net. When Dustin Hoffman’s near-sighted Dega catches a rare and beautiful blue butterfly, McQueen bargains with a visiting insect dealer for a passage off their tropical island prison.

Yesterday, the sports editor took the pickaxe from my hand, pressed a net into my sweaty, leathery palm, and told me to go catch butterflies at Cheltenham.

Ha! Little did he know that I was to turn his miserly €20 budget into a route off this inky hell.

So to the off. Crowd-sourcing is the newest trend in new journalism – the theory is that (lazy) journalists outsource tasks to a group of people through an “open call” asking for contributions. Sounds good to me.

I text everyone in my phone book from ‘Alan mechanic’ to ‘Zico’s Pizza’ looking for a tip as well as roaring into the echo chamber that is Twitter.

And after spreading yesterday’s newspaper across the kitchen table and circling any potential winners in red biro, like JR Hartley looking for his out-of-print fly-fishing books in that classic Yellow Pages TV advert of yesteryear, I went for Peddlars Cross.

In these straitened times, our budget, like everything else has been reeled in from last year’s €50 to 20. So a modest €2 flutter on the Jason Maguire jockeyed horse in the Neptune Investment Novices Hurdle was enough to wet my beak. Amazingly, he came in and the off-the-shelf misery-dripping intro I usually use was thrown over my shoulder, with a loud guffaw, into the waste paper basket.

My brother’s namesake Davy Russell was next up for me on Weapons Amnesty at 2.40. If I’d known he was owned by budget airline boss Michael O’Leary, I might have checked my slip for extra charges and brought my own bottled water with me. But nevertheless he romped (as they only seem to say in tabloids and horse racing) to victory. Another Ryanair arrival on time, despite a bumpy enough ride. That’s €21 in winnings to add to the €16 earlier. Not quite enough in the kitty yet to perform a well-rehearsed resignation speech on the sports desk, but we’re going in the right direction.

These race meetings are a time when peasant is cheek by jowl with royalty in the queue for the portaloos behind the champagne tent. So then to the regal sounding Kalahari King. A €1.50 each way stake brought in the princely sum of €3.19. Why bother? But then came the redemption for every reader and our own Ruby on Sanctuaire. A still conservative €2.50 each way topped up a good day’s work as I grabbed the chips off the table, tipping my head back and laughing.

However, if you know your 1970s film history, you’ll know Papillon and his accomplice are double crossed by the butterfly dealer. Papillon’s only reward for hard work and ingenuity is betrayal and disappointment.

So I too expected the final fence of the day – the Weatherbys Champion Bumper at 5.15 – to see my final pick failing to place. But as Henri ‘Papillon’ Charriere showed: try, try again. We tried again with Ruby on Al Ferof. He was beaten to second, but another €9 saw us top out the day on €46.51.