And the winner is ...

Many thanks to Emma for illustrating the chapter which I put up yesterday. It's interesting seeing the pictures one has taken blown up on the computer screen, because merely viewing on the back of the camera can be very deceptive: I'd taken what I'd believed was a lovely picture of a tired Le Miracle standing in the winner's enclosure, but it transpires that the focus wasn't all that I'd hoped, but then I found that my view from above shot of the Arc finish was far better than I could have expected. I don't know, though, if there will be any illustrations for this short entry, because I just thought I'd put up a few quick comments on a couple of items from today's Racing Post.

Firstly, Big Dave Osborne seems to have relinquished pole position in the Chat Room to Newmarket's most diligent work-watcher, Peter Hadden. But Big Dave has fought back today with a request for information on Taffy Thomas' whereabouts. I'm sure some else will be able to furnish a more thorough reply to the query, but I'm sure I wasn't the only person to see Taffy walking off the stands at Newmarket on Cheveley Park Stakes Day. I hadn't seen him for a while: although he rode out for Ed Dunlop for several years after finishing race-riding, he stopped that a few years ago, so I was pleased to see him looking pretty much unchanged from the last time I'd seen him. Newmarket races is often a good place to spy a few ex-hoops: on one day in the summer, I saw three in the owners' and trainers' bar on the July Course at the same time, all of whom had been involved in the finish of big races within a year or two of each other in the '80s: Billy Newnes (Oaks winner), Geoff Baxter (Oaks place-getter, I think - third on New Coins for Ben Hanbury I think, although I could be totally wrong there) and Rae Guest (Coronation Cup place-getter). And then you can't walk down Newmarket High Street for long without bumping into two of the top apprentices of 30+ years ago, David Dineley and Richard Fox. Or being run over by a huge and spotlessly clean car driven by Cliff Wigham, runner-up to Pat Eddery in the apprentices' title, which would have been in the late '60s, I suppose, who is now a driver for Sheikh Mohammed's crew. I like seeing all these faces from yesteryear still looking well. And I hope someone can put Dave Osborne's mind at rest about Taffy, or I'll have to do so.

The second item to catch my eye was the list of finalists for the HWPA writer of the year, these four being James Willoughby, Julian Muscat, Richard Edmondson and Chris McGrath. As was reported in the paper, I had the honour and the pleasure of being, along with Paul Hayward and Tim Richards, a member of the committee deciding on the short-list's composition. The idea is that the award is, as its name suggests, judged on what people have actually written over the past year, rather than merely Buggins' Turn. If 20 people entered, sending in 3 pieces each, there is no way that any of the members would bother to read all 60 pieces before casting their votes, so it was decided that an independent panel would read all the articles and produce a short-list, and then the members could vote from this short-list, with the option of reading the twelve articles they'd written if they chose. Plus it means that the the brochure at the lunch can give a list of four from whom the winner will be announced, as is standard at awards' ceremonies. To make this panel patently independent, three people were selected to go on it who have no particular affliation to any camps: Tim Richard (winner last year on his retirement), Paul Hayward (formerly a highly respected racing journo, now an award-winning general sports journo), and - surprisingly - me. So I had the pleasure of reading all the pieces, nearly all of which were extremely good, and then joining the other panellists, plus Geoff Lester, for an extremely good lunch in a restaurant in London last Thursday. The selection process went very well. We discussed each entry, and then Paul, Tim and I all produced our own list of four; as there were four journalists whose names appeared in at least two of the three lists, that made the composition of the final list easy. It'll be interesting - from my point of view, anyway - to see who does now win the award. All would be worthy winners, and there were several who, if this was a show-ring, despite not making the final four would be given 'Highly Commended' rosettes, including Marcus Armitage, whose description of his day riding out with Enda Bolger was one of the funniest articles I've ever read. So it was a real pleasure to be involved with that, the bonuses being not just a good lunch, but also an excuse to visit Hatchards book shop in Piccadilly, whence I returned with several volumes to add to the pile beside my bed, including the latest offerings by Peter Temple (which I started once I'd finished the Patrick O'Brian I was reading), Robert Harris and Wilbur Smith, plus a William Boyd and a couple of Henning Mankells. So if we have a long cold winter ahead of us, at least I'll have plenty to keep me occupied on those dark evenings.