Cheltenham Et Al: The Best of Alastair Down

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It won at top weight and I remember running into Jim a day later and he grunted at me to say ‘hello’ as he always does; and I said to Jim, “Just to say, I’ve been driving a Ford Fiesta but next week I’ll be driving a Saab Turbo thanks to you! As he passed the post, I hoarsely borrowed a few quid from a mate and we went to the bar to fusillade a few corks. they have to organise all the staff and all the equipment - I mean Eisenhower spent less time planning the D-Day landings than Elliot and Mullins would have done to get those horses over here fit and well…. Most notably for me was the loss of Kauto Star, and his eulogy of my favourite ever racehorse encapsulated all I felt on the day I heard he had died. I met him a few times a very long time ago as I had horses with Jim Old in his glory days with Mole Board and Collier Bay and Alastair also had a share in one there.

To help personalise content, tailor your experience and help us improve our services, Betfair uses cookies. Describe all the feelings the Festival bound jockeys, trainers and owners experience as this week approaches? Put it this way, three or four people woke up on the platform at Paddington at 3am the following morning, it was that sort of day! Down was also fortunate that his first bet – at the age of five – was a winning one when the gallant grey Nicholas Silver won the 1961 Grand National. It didn’t make for easy viewing; you wouldn’t be able to have it now, the public wouldn’t stand for it.

We had satellite tv, mainly French and I had no way of watching Cheltenham, except on this particular Friday.

Down commanded a platoon in the Battle of Sidi Barrani in December 1940 and lost his right eye in the engagement. everyone just thinks it’s ‘down the hill and round the corner’ - but if you stand at the bottom turn and look up to the winning post…they talk about the ‘Cheltenham Hill’; you don’t see the winning post until you’re on ground level with it and it does rise away from you into that tunnel funnel of noise and people. On recovering after an over-indulgent day at Longchamp: ‘I just wish to be left alone with my thoughts and sincere hopes that my liver, which I mailed home by separate refrigerated container, will arrive soon.

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In Double Trigger they meet in a chemistry that the old alchemists sought unavailingly for generations,” wrote Down. My dad, who was a meek, mild and delightful man, was a five Shilling punter on a Saturday who worked in the City of London. His son Peter was a champion jockey – and now runs a successful stable in Scotland with his partner Lucida Russell. For many years he was senior presenter on Channel 4 Racing during the jumps season, and he has been named Racing Journalist of the Year three times.Jim seemed to know most of the journos in those day and Colin McKenzie and Jonathan Powell were also part of "team Old". Then I thought betting was very easy; ‘You just back the white one - it’s so very simple, I don’t know why everybody else doesn’t do that! Wherever this broadcast was coming from, I don't know, but I watched the whole meeting daring not to touch the remote control! And, most poignantly of all, this is how Down described the cancer-stricken training genius Sir Henry Cecil when the incomparable Frankel won an unforgettable Juddmonte International two summers ago.