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A Day at the Races (or, what Jeffrey Bernard did when he wasn’t at the Colony Room)

Michael Spring

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Michael Spring considers Bernard’s lifelong relationship with the world of horse racing

Just as any proper study of boxing as a social phenomenon should begin with Pierce Egan’s Boxiana(1), no examination of horse racing can go anywhere without talking about Jeffrey Bernard.

Bernard, who turned his hand to a lot of things when he came to Soho as a young man (stage hand, artist’s model, boxer …) was probably killed by his interest in horses, mainly because it gave him an income. It was when a friend of his suggested that he ‘try journalism’, that he started writing about horse racing for Queen magazine. (Twiggy on the cover; Bernard somewhere around page 150, in company with the restrictive undergarments.)

From there, he found that he could write quite well about horses and horse-racing folk. He discovered the sport at about the same time as alcohol and sex, and his career went into a tailspin of success, if such a thing is possible. ‘This is a man who opens his veins in the morning with ten cigarettes, and closes them again at lunchtime with half a bottle of vodka,’ a doctor explained to some trainees during one of Bernard’s many later stays in hospital.

And it was horse racing that made it all possible.

From those exalted beginnings on Queen to getting sacked (how many times exactly?) by Sporting Life, to plumbing the depths as a c-ontributor to The Spectator (or perhaps as ‘Colonel Mad’, for Private Eye), the sun comes out brightly but more and more infrequently on a career which plunged as gloriously downhill as the runners do into the dip at Newmarket.

In those days, Bernard and his pals used to repair from the Coach and Horses to Paddington for the special to Cheltenham and the festival (the most important days of the year for jump racing), buoyed up by Bollinger and chatting up the waitresses in the buffet car in the desperate hope of a knee-trembler in the lavs. (Whether or not such a service was ever vouchsafed is something upon which one can only speculate.)

It is indeed the special joy of most good race meetings that they are accessible by train (no specials to Cheltenham any more, sadly, but it is still easy to reach), which in turn means that drink – especially should one have a bit of luck early in the day – can be consumed copiously, should one so desire. (Wincanton, I believe, offers the best value to be had on a bottle of champagne at a racecourse, at something around the £25 mark, and that is likely to be the only
piece of really practical advice to be found here.)

Inevitably though, drink can lead to other problems. Bernard once went to sleep under a tree at Ascot. His 17-1 shot had come home earlier in the day with fifty of his notes on board, with inevitable consequences. Awakening in the near-darkness, he did the only thing he could and stumbled off towards the dying sounds of merriment coming from the last bar on the course to close. There, of course, he was treated like royalty, bought more champagne, and finally offered a lift home in a chauffeured limousine by a winning owner. It wouldn’t happen with any other sport.

Horse racing is sometimes compared with sex by aficionados. I suppose they may have a point: it is often over too quickly and your first experience may define how you see it forever.

Go for the first time to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, and your abiding memories may simply be of hats. (You may also decide, quite reasonably on the strength of that experience, to join the communist party.) Go to Fakenham in December and you may feel that racing has a lot in common with Captain Scott and the dash to the Pole. Both have their attractions, but both need to be carefully handled as part of your introduction to the sport.

My own experience, for what it’s worth, was being taken to Downpatrick in Northern Ireland by a bloke I knew at university whose nickname was Poker. I arrived at the course with about ten pounds. I left unsteadily several hours later, afloat on a sea of stout, still with ten pounds, and with a lot of new friends, including a girl called Deirdre. I was eighteen. (Racing in Ireland hasn’t changed much since Somerville and Ross memorably described it in the nineteenth century.(2))

Of course, there are many reasons why people don’t like racing. It is probably true that there’s too much of it, and not every track is beautiful, capable of catering for everyone, or easy to get into and out of. If you go with the expectation of coming home having relieved the bookies of the contents of their satchels, you will probably be disappointed. It may well rain, and you will be – mostly – out in the open. You will probably spend more money than you should. (And ‘lucky’ heather, retailed by gypsies on Epsom Downs, cannot always be guaranteed to be effective.) Any one of these factors could mean that you don’t go racing again for weeks at least.

Now, if you’ll forgive me for a second, I am going to get slightly technical. The flat season is mainly in the summer. The jumping season is mainly in the winter. I say mainly because you can see flat racing on all-weather tracks throughout
the year, and you can certainly go to jumping events in the summer. To do either, though, is like having fresh strawberries at Christmas. There is just something not quite right about it. (Traditionalists like myself know that the last day of the flat comes with the November handicap and all this stuff about a ‘Winter Derby’ is pretty much nonsense.)

That’s all the technical stuff I’m prepared to discuss. You can find out for yourselves how to read a racecard, delve into discussions about the ‘going’, left- and right-handed tracks and whether it’s better to be drawn high or low at Musselburgh. (And if you find out the answer to that last question, perhaps you’d let me know?)

There only remains the thorniest of issues, namely what to wear.

Now, if you are going jumping in the depths of winter, anything would do that you would be likely to choose for a trip on a North Sea trawler, especially the sea boots. (Ladies who are invited to Ripon or Chepstow during the winter months should not be under any illusions that they are going to a cooler version of Chantilly; it will be cold and probably wet too, and Jimmy Choos are unlikely
to survive.)

Most flat racing tracks do have a dress code for the most expensive stands, but it isn’t too rigorous, although it is appreciated if ladies do make an effort (by me, especially). The exception is Royal Ascot, where, should you be lucky enough
to be nominated by the Duke of wherever as a suitable person to enter the Royal Enclosure, you will require morning dress (for men) or a spectacular hat (for ladies).

Jeffrey Bernard being Jeffrey Bernard, of course, he disobeyed every rule and got away with it. On one occasion during a Royal meeting, he collared a trainer to gain his special insight into the races to come. Having downed several during this discussion, the trainer in question looked at his watch and said he had to be going back to the paddock. Bernard rose from his chair and said that he would come too. He was dressed in a stained blazer, open-necked pink shirt, jeans and desert boots. The trainer looked at him in some horror.

‘Where’s your hat?’ he enquired, realising that Bernard intended to accompany him into the Royal precincts.

‘What the fuck do I need a hat for?’ Bernard replied, slightly belligerently.

‘There’s the question of Her Majesty,’ the trainer said. ‘If we should bump into her, what would you raise?’

Bernard paused for a second longer than perhaps he might have. A hush came over the bar as people listened for what he might say.

‘Well, there is the question of my knighthood.’

And with that thought in mind, I shall return to my Racing Post and contemplate the prospects for the weekend.

 

1) Boxiana, by Pierce Egan, was published in serial form over the years 1811-1813. The elegantly written Sweet Science, by AJ Liebling, is also essential reading on the sport.

2) An Irish RM by Somerville and Ross, was first published in 1899.