When you get to a certain age and have watched more horse races than you have eaten hot dinners, it’s sometimes difficult to cast your mind back to those very early racecourse visits.
However, I do believe mine was Haydock Park, around the 1980 mark and long before the days of being able to place horse racing online bets. A quick tot up in my head suggests I’ve scarily been attending fixtures at Haydock for just over 40 years.
As I alluded to in a previous article, one of my first memories of seeing a well known jockey in person was when Greville Starkey came into the old unsaddling enclosure at Haydock after riding a winner, and despite lots of rapturous applause from those who had backed his mount, he remained completely unruffled and po-faced.
As you can imagine the roll call of winners that I have witnessed in the flesh at the Lancashire racecourse is a vast one but for the purposes of these piece I’ll just pick out a one of my personal highlights.
Back in 2008, The North West Masters, which used to take place at Haydock on the Saturday (Betfair Chase Day) and Aintree (the home of Grand National betting) on the Sunday, well and truly established itself as a two-day racing doubleheader of substance and quality. It’s such a shame it’s gone now – bring it back!
Anyway, that particular year, the Betfair Chase was billed as another classic showdown between Kauto Star and Exotic Dancer after Kauto had just edged out Exotic in the previous season's encounter.
However, racehorses don’t follow scripts and the most unexpected trip to the payout counter I’ve ever experienced at Haydock Park ensued.
The Peter Bowen-trained Snoopy Loopy looked booked for a place at the very best when vying for third coming over the last, however the 33-1 shot totally cashed in on Kauto Star’s final-fence unseat, and overhauled the front running Tamarinbleu by half a length at the line.
Having taken odds of 66/1 earlier in the day, it completely felt like all my birthday’s had come at once.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
FIRST PUBLISHED: 24th August 2022
