🏇 GOODWOOD, A MERCEDES, AND THE BEST £18,000 STEVE EVER WON
Some racing memories aren’t about the racing at all.
It would have been the late eighties. Glorious Goodwood. My dad had lent us his Mercedes for the day, so we turned up suited and booted, feeling like we’d arrived somewhere.
My mate Steve ,an absolute legend, gone now but never forgotten ,wanted to drive. None of us argued. It meant the rest of us could get stuck into a few beers on the way down, and Steve got to feel like the king of the road for an afternoon.
He was so proud of himself behind the wheel of that Mercedes that he did a lap of the village three times before we’d even properly set off, just so he could wave at everyone out the window. That was Steve all over.
🐎 STEVE’S MASSIVE TOUCH
Steve was an out and out gambler , the proper old school kind. Years later, in 1996, when Frankie Dettori rode all seven winners on the card at Ascot, Steve backed six of the seven and walked away around £18,000 richer.
Eighteen grand. And do you know what stuck with him for the rest of his life? Not the win. The one he missed. He could never work out why he hadn’t backed all seven, because that would have been the payout of a lifetime.
Steve’s no longer with us. He took that what-if to his grave. That’s gambling for you ,even when you win big, there’s always the one that got away gnawing at the back of your mind.
🛣️ GETTING THERE WAS HALF THE BATTLE
Goodwood is a beautiful track but a nightmare to actually get to. The road links on a busy day are genuinely tough going ,anyone who’s sat in that traffic knows exactly what I mean.
We finally pulled in and got out of the car to be met by some travelling families selling lucky heather. Now here’s the thing ,I come from traveller heritage myself, and the lady selling it took one look at me and turned straight to the rest of the lads. “Never one to another, my boy,” she said, and gently relieved each of them of a fiver while leaving me well alone.
The boys never could work out why I didn’t have to pay. I never told them either.
☘️ A GOOD DAY
We had a brilliant day. The heather worked a treat ,or at least everyone believed it did, which amounts to the same thing on a racecourse. The Mercedes got us home in one piece, eventually, after the traffic let us out.
That’s racing at its best. Not always about the winners and losers on the track. Sometimes it’s about who you went with, what daft things happened along the way, and the stories you’re still telling decades later about people who aren’t around to tell them themselves anymore.
Steve, this one’s for you, mate. You absolute legend.
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