And then Sire de Grugy took over as a very repectable two-mile chase champion until he became temporarily unavailable to continue his dominance of that event. And so the field for the Tingle Creek chase at Sandown are, through no fault of their own, playing in the first heat of this season's set of races for who might be best at two miles over fences in 2014/15 but thus possibly only a gallant third to the other two had they been able to run. And that is also betting without Simonsig.
Put your hand up if you remember Tingle Creek. I do. What a great big lump of jumping muscle he was. But forgive me. I'll be writing about Pendil, Bula, Lanzarote, Comedy of Errors and Night Nurse if you'd let me. And some others, too.
It is a great shame how some sports have to make do without their finest talent. It makes one grateful for how Ronnie O'Sullivan stuck to the task and still turns up, by now among the very oldest of the professional snooker players but still in a class of his own, pulling faces but all the time knowing that he can take candy from those babies. I forgot to begin my tribute to Gillian Rimmer (below) with a mention of Ronnie's latest 147. Watching it was like feeling time escape from beneath you. Watch it, believe in it. Ronnie is not going to be doing this forever. These precious moments that are disappearing as you watch are unlikely to visit this sport, or any other, again.
But I ought to be writing about horse racing, God help me with this demonic Chateau David.
Sandown, Aintree, Chepstow, Wetherby. Will there be enough jockeys to go round. Can I sweat enough overnight to lose about four stone and then learn to ride a horse in the morning. I did once dream that I was sitting on a horse at the start of a race at Fontwell, thinking 'this is fine' before realizing that I had no idea how to ride a horse and I was soon going to be badly embarrassed.
And then, years later, the dream turned up again on concurrent nights but in each of the other sports I have had sometime involvement in.
I dreamt that I was on the bench for an England football match that was taking place on a council-type pitch like old Plock Court in Gloucester, where I used to turn out for FC Spartak from the age of 15 to 17, which is, of course, all now houses. But England were 2-0 up and the manager, probably Roy, was saying he was going to take Rooney off and put me on. And I could only think, please don't put me on, I'm incredibly unfit, I'll be off the pace, I can't do it.
Then I dreamed a dream in which I and some other amateur racing cyclists that I knew had been signed up by SKY to ride the first few stages of the Tour de France because Bradley Wiggins and the other big stars couldn't get there in time. And so we were in the hotel being given all this flash SKY equipment and my main worry was whether the shoes they had given me would fit the pedals on my bike. It was all fine, with lots of free kit available, until I realized it was very unlikely that I could even stay in the peloton for more than a couple of miles and I would finish hours after the main field and be disqualified.
And then I was in the changing room of an England one-day international cricket side, due to bat at number 4, as I obviously would. I wasn't too worried until one of the openers got out and then so did Dennis Amiss, which shows when it would have been, and so I had to get my kit on and go out to bat. But none of the kit fitted me. I couldn't find any two pads that made a pair. I couldn't find a box and so I took a transistor radio apart and put half of the casing of that into my trousers and it was only as I went out to bat, to face Michael Holding or Denis Lillee or somesuch nightmare that I woke up.
I woke up from all those dreams of sport before any sport had to happen.
There is nothing worse than hearing about other people's dreams. It is only your own neuroses giving you a hard time when you only want to be asleep.
So, anyway, on a day when there is, if anything, too much jump racing, maybe the safe option is to nap Irish Saint (Sandown 1.50, pictured).
But then I'll try a yankee with him, who is the only recommended bet, along with Doing Fine (Chepstow 12.55), Beast of Burden (Aintree, 12.00) and Balder Succes (Sandown 3.00) because you only ever land 4 out of 4 by luck and not good judgement and so you can include one of Rebecca's, one of the Rolling Stones' best records and the favourite for the big race if you can't see anything that can beat it on its best form.
And then what I did was, I put the last bit of cash in my account on all of those plus Binge Drinker (Chepstow, 1.25) in a Canadian. I don't know why I did that. Oh, yes, it is trained by Rebecca Curtis.
