HOT CHERRY
what's it all about?

I once read in an obituary that the recently deceased had a great sense of humour 'but never at anyone else's expense.' They won’t, alas, write that of me when I’m gone.

For most of the 12 years that I have been employed as a racing correspondent for the Daily Telegraph I have written a weekly column, variously called 'on Saturday' or, when it hasn’t appeared on a Saturday (for obvious reasons), the 'Racing Diary.' Latterly I have written once fortnightly for the Horse & Hound .

In these columns we have tried to come up with amusing anecdotes from the extremely colourful sport of horseracing. Many of the characters we’ve come across have not been Champions or multiple winners but people who have lived off their wits and, thankfully, their bottomless pit of humour.

If it is stuff on racing’s most successful you’re looking for then in Hot Cherry you’re probably looking in the wrong place. Often the stories involve hideous misfortune of which there seems an unending source where horses are concerned and, equally often, it has been politically incorrect for which we make absolutely no apology. In fact if you’re at all sensitive or a crusader for political
correctness then I’d advise you to put this book down at once.

The idea behind the Daily Telegraph column has always been to lighten up racing for people who might not necessarily be experts or fanatical punters though hopefully they might have been tickled occasionally. Instead we’ve tried to draw in people from outside racing and those with just a passing interest so we hope this collection has a wider appeal than your average 100 percent-proof racing book.

Equally not everyone (sadly) reads the Daily Telegraph and some who do don’t get as far as the sports pages hence the reason for putting together the best (make that least worst) items under one roof for those who may be unfamiliar with them.

Undoubtedly the best things about Hot Cherry are the illustrations by Peter Curling, Ireland’s foremost equine artist and raconteur. His serious stuff, I might add, is even better than his sketches for this book. We were lucky to get him on board before one of his commissions was sold at a charity auction for two million Euros and he got any high-faluting ideas about payment.
 

Sample stories from HOT CHERRY

TRAINERS may be swanning off to Santa Anita and Melbourne with their older horses at this time of year but back at home it is anything but glory, it is business as usual or, in many cases, more business than usual. All those yearlings bought at the autumn sales are now coming in to be broken and across the land brave test pilots are being fired into orbit.

It doesn't need me to tell you that some horses are little dollies to break and others are very difficult, depending on their character, their breeding, how they've been brought up and how full of grub they've been for the sales. For last weekend's Champions' day card at Newmarket I stayed with Ed Peate who runs a very professional 'spelling' yard in Dullingham and the bulk of his work at this time of year is breaking yearlings for some of Newmarket's biggest yards.

In the case of the Peates it is like father, like son. Jeffrey Peate, his father, is now retired but used to break in jumpers for people like Toby Balding and Kim Bailey as well as train pointers with great success on the southern circuit. Obviously, as they're older and stronger, jumpers can be worse than yearlings if they want to be difficult and Jeffrey was once sent a horse to break that was proving impossible. Someone else had already had a go at it and failed and, though he had some tough staff at the time, this horse was beginning to damage them. As soon as he'd bucked them off he would have a crack at them on the ground. In short he was the worse horse Jeffrey had ever been sent.

What was really taxing Jeffrey was how he could get this brute used to having a jockey on his back without expending any more staff. Then he had a brain wave - he'd send off for one of those blow up dolls which, I'm told, are advertised in the back of gentlemen's magazines, strap her tothe back of the horse and, hey presto, job done.

There was great excitement at breakfast in the Peate's Sussex household a few days later when a brown paper parcel arrived containing a neatly folded, completely deflated Hot Cherry, complete with her round face, wild expectant eyes and a gaping mouth. Before he could finish his toast and marmalade old Jeffrey was out in the garage searching for the foot pump and in no time at all Hot Cherry, in all her naked glory, had been enrolled as the newest member of staff.

Penny Peate, the ex-super model and Jeffrey's wife, was slightly ashamed at the sight that had arisen, phoenix-like, off the floor as her husband furiously pumped his foot up and down all the while chuckling to himself. It was time, Penny thought, for a little decorum and before she'd let Jeffrey take his new lass out to work she dressed her up in jeans and a jumper.

The horse was produced in the lunging ring and Hot Cherry was attached, via her knees, to the saddle with string. That was a great success and all went well until the horse was encouraged to trot. At this stage, Hot Cherry, legs and arms akimbo, started to lurch back and forth in the breeze. The horse took one look over its shoulder and, horrified - let this be a lesson to any of you girls who go riding eyelashed up to the hilt - jumped out of the lunging ring, galloped through two sets of posts and rails, and headed for the village of Frant. His emotionless jockey, meanwhile, swayed from one impossible angle to another but, nonetheless, stuck tenaciously to her mount. If she'd been expecting a ride - by God she was getting one.

Which brings us neatly to the local vicar. He'd been quietly tending his pansies in his front garden when horse and jockey clattered past in the direction of Tunbridge Wells. A doer of good deeds he thought he should ring his local stable. Penny answered. "I've just seen one of your horses running away with one of your girls," said the Vicar. "She looked rather distressed and appeared to be screaming."

If only he'd known. Of course Hot Cherry, who suffered a couple of unfortunately terminal puncture wounds, was a huge success. After he'd been caught the unscathed horse was completely pooped, his spirit broken and was ridden round for the rest of the morning like a child's first pony. I'd like to tell you that the horse in question turned out to be Morley Street but Jeffrey doesn't recall its name and to the best of his knowledge it never made the racecourse.

So, a million dollar yearling is proving a bit of a handful. Would Ed Peate ever consider employing similar tactics and using a blow up doll? "Not for the horses," he says.
 

BECOMING a jockey can be a long, and at times, testing process. Most of us went hunting, Pony Clubbing, showjumped or even, Gor forbid, when we thought we knew it all, had riding lessons for years before we were ever allowed near a thoroughbred racehorse.

A Lambourn mum recently decided that her son, a bold, in-front-of-the-hounds type of jockey aged 11, would benefit from proper jumping lessons.

On his return, she asked him what he thought of his intructress. "Ninety-five percent mouth," replied her son, "three percent wrinkles and two percent bitch."

 

HAVING sat next to someone in a restaurant recently who sent their steak tartare back because it wasn't cooked enough I was reminded about a bloodstock agent in the days when trips to Keeneland and Saratoga were still something of a novelty. After his long and exhausting flight, the elderly agent was asked, on his arrival, whether he would like a Jacuzzi to help him wind down. "Yes, please," he replied "not too strong and plenty of ice."
 

WITH 4,000 staff brought in, the occasional catering blunder is to be expected. On Tuesday, horse breeder peter McCalmont was having a drink in the 'big white,' one of the many marquees. "Excuse me," he protested, "this wine is corked."

"Of course it's corked," came the rather smart reply, "how else do you think we keep it in the bottle?"

At this point McCalmont sought a superviser who turned out to be not a day over 17.
Realising the word 'corked' was obviously the cause of the confusion he sought to avoid it. "Excuse me," he said, "this wine is off."

"How can it be?" replied the supervisor. "It was only delivered yesterday."

All this is reminiscent of the occasion three years ago when a wine waiter was ordered to put 100 bottles of champagne in 50 ice buckets to cool them down. He was stopped soon after he'd emptied the 40th bottle.