I have posted nothing on this site for months. Am I experiencing writer's block? Not really. It's more a sense of despair that so much is wrong in this country and the world and nothing is being done about it. Our governors and masters stick their collective heads in the sands and ignore the chaos around them. Sure, they tell us that they are taking action but all too often, they are not.
So, today I am going to write about something completely different. Horse racing is not a sport in which I have much interest but an event occurred on Thursday which not even I could miss. It happened at Towcester — a town in Northamptonshire, noted mainly for its racecourse. As its name suggest, Towcester has Roman origins. Named by them Lactodurum, the area of Towcester and its surroundings were inhabited long before the Romans arrived. The town lies on the A5 trunk road about 8 miles SW of Northampton and 10 miles NW of Milton Keynes. The town has been mainly a quiet market town and grown only slowly. Its racecourse was built in 1928 and has recently undergone considerable refurbishment. It is used mainly in the winter for national hunt racing and in the meeting on November 7th 2013, jockey Tony McCoy got his 4,000th career win riding Mountain Tunes in the Weatherbys Novices' Hurdle. This is an astonishing achievement for any jockey. During his long career he has been champion jockey eighteen times and at some time or other he has broken almost every bone in his body. But he still loves horse racing and has no intention of retiring.
Tony McCoy seems to epitomize everything good in a top level sportsman. He is very modest about his achievements, which — he says — have been made possible by the horses he has riden and all the trainers with whom he has worked. After a short celebration of his 4000th winner, he st off home, pausing only to telephone his old friend, Sir Peter O'Sullevan, now 95 years old and one time the voice of horse racing. He offered Sir peter the boots he had worn for his 4000th winner to be raffled off and the takings contributed to his race horse charities.
May Tony McCoy have a long career ahead of him and perhaps make it to 5000 winners.
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Tony McCoy seems to epitomize everything good in a top level sportsman. He is very modest about his achievements, which — he says — have been made possible by the horses he has riden and all the trainers with whom he has worked. After a short celebration of his 4000th winner, he st off home, pausing only to telephone his old friend, Sir Peter O'Sullevan, now 95 years old and one time the voice of horse racing. He offered Sir peter the boots he had worn for his 4000th winner to be raffled off and the takings contributed to his race horse charities.
May Tony McCoy have a long career ahead of him and perhaps make it to 5000 winners.
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