Very Goodwood

Goodwood is continuing but not for me as I did the first three days for Racenews but returned home late last night with the aim of going to Bath with John today to watch Ethics Girl. As with so many good intentions, this has gone out of the window as even only three days away somehow leaves me with so much to catch up on. Perhaps I’m just badly organised.

One positive outcome of this is that the last time Ethics Girl ran (and won) was a Friday evening, I couldn’t go so Gail came round to watch the race on TV with me, brought a curry with her and we ate, drank lots of wine and cheered her home raucously. Now I’m marooned in Newmarket, Gail is once again coming round, with curry. All the omens are good except that this time Dawn is coming with her so we’ll blame her if the filly doesn’t win.

John’s a big believer in the 'back the horse of the first trainer you see' rule. The horse we fear most in the race is Point Of Light, who could just be one of the Prescott improvers. Unhappily for John, the first trainer he saw on the heath this morning was Sir Mark, followed swiftly by Point Of Light’s jockey Chris Catlin. Double disaster. But not for me as John was the first trainer I saw this morning so I’m sticking with our tough little girl, who has been bouncing around at home.

Goodwood really does deserve its Glorious tag. It is very hard to imagine a more outstanding setting for a racecourse and, in my opinion, every manager of a major course in this country should be made to spend a few days racing at Goodwood to see how it should be done. It’s smart without being stuffy and classy without being pretentious. Best of all, while there would clearly be many corporate groups being entertained there, it still manages to feel like it’s all about the racing but with a backdrop of lovely bars and food outlets with a great choice with great service that enables you to keep an eye on the racing at all times.

The week’s feelgood factor was aided by staying at Maggie Paterson’s lovely Fitzlea Farmhouse in the middle of nowhere but somehow handily close to the racecourse. Although I’d never met Maggie, her B&B is a regular haunt for Chris McGrath, James Willoughby and Lydia Hislop so Ed Prosser and I booked to stay there too, on Chris’s recommendation, and we were not disappointed. Maggie at once makes everyone feel at home and as if we were part of a big (dysfunctional) family, arguing over what was going to win the Sussex Stakes at breakfast. Being able to watch rabbits and deer playing on the lawn in the morning and then finding a nearby pub that had Neil Young on the jukebox and great local cider made this number one on my list of lovely places to stay in England. Fortunately there was no piano at Maggie's so Chris and Ed were unable to re-enact their duet from our Cheltenham house in March.

As John has mentioned, the last few weeks have been worrying following the accident of our friend Camilla. She has now been transferred to Stoke Mandeville for the next stage of her recovery and rehabilitation and the already admirable JP McNamara shot up even further in my estimation by flying over from Ireland yesterday especially to visit Camilla, offering advice and encouragement in her fight back to fitness. She has so many people on her side, willing her to be better and I know absolutely that her own strong will and amazingly positive outlook will be her best ally.

John's beard is growing back at an alarming rate despite my pleas for him to remain clean-shaven until my birthday and Hugo Morriss's (extraordinary) assertion that I would have to watch my step as John is so good-looking without his beard that he would have all the women of Newmarket and beyond beating a path to his door. Hmmm.