A cynic might say that all those racing johnnies are daft. But a cynic, according to the words written by Oscar Wilde for one of his characters in Lady Windermere’s Fan, is “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

The majority of Scottish schools broke up for the summer holidays earlier this week, meaning that Scottish pupils will miss out on One Britain One Nation Day – billed by the Department for Education as an opportunity to learn about ‘our shared values of tolerance, kindness, pride and respect’.

But hey – there’s plenty of other things Scottish kids could be doing besides learning about tolerance and kindness…

My television set is almost permanently tuned in to Racing TV, so it’s been a while since I watched a decent film. When they eventually get around to augmenting their excellent live-streaming service with a few feature films, here’s a list of twenty racing themed movies that I’m looking forward to watching…

In June 1975 Barney Curley executed one of the most famous gambles of all time, on a horse called Yellow Sam at Bellewstown. It was a moderate race and any large bets would have stuck out like a sore thumb, so Curley arranged for an army of men to place smaller stakes at SP (the starting price) across hundreds of betting shops away from the racecourse.

Sunday, Monday, Happy Days,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days,
Thursday, Friday, Happy Days,
The weekend comes, the racegoer hums,
Ready to go racing with you!

The buds on the newly planted beech saplings have broken into leaf, the grass on the track needs mowing yet again and evening jaunts are spoilt by clouds of flying bugs.

Summer is finally here…

Joanna’s scarecrow is a truly frightening individual with a manic grin, curly hair and no face mask. I occasionally wonder whether he was based on anyone that I know…

It’d be easy to define a racemeeting as an event where horses are ridden around a field to determine which one is the fastest, but that’d neglect the essential contribution gained through the addition of spectators.

Without spectators there is no ‘meeting’, all we’re left with is the ‘race’ part of the word…

Having a reasonably logical and enquiring mind, it’s safe to say that I have hitherto considered myself to be a bit of scientist or, as the Cambridge Dictionary might frame it: a person who gains knowledge through the systematic observation of the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world.

Despite the government’s investment of £1.2 billion in a meteorological super-computer next year (that it is claimed will be capable of predicting the weather on a street-by-street basis), there will always be people who prefer to base their weather predictions on the behaviour of cattle in a nearby field – just as there will always be racegoers who insist on backing the horses trained by the first trainer they see on arrival at the racecourse.