Vagaries of the linguists

Returning to the theme of thoughts from 2007, another highlight for me was my involvement in the selection of the HWPA Journalist of the Year. To recap, the idea was that, to give the award some connection to what the candidates had actually written in the past year - as opposed to it being a long-service award, or Buggins' turn, as it sometimes seemed to have been previously - each entrant would submit three articles which they'd had published in 2007. A panel of three impartial people would select its preferred short-list of four, and then the voters, ie the HWPA members, would vote from this four, either reading or not reading the proffered pieces as they chose. Anyway, the panel was Tim Richards, Paul Hayward and myself, and it was was really good fun to be on it; not only because it's nice to find oneself in good company, but also, in my case anyway, because it meant that I found myself reading some really good articles which I'd previously missed. The selection of the short-list was easy: we'd each compiled a list of four, and four names were on at least two of the three lists - hey presto, the work was done.

Selecting one's individual short-list was harder, because the standard of entry was so high. I recall when I used to ride my pony in shows as a boy that the winner received a red rosette, the second a blue, the third a yellow and the fourth a green. So one could say that the panel's short-list of four were the four recipients of rosettes, and it was up to the members to decide who received the red. But, going back to the show-ring, there used to be a small quantity of white rosettes for people who'd done well without making the frame - these rosettes would have 'Highly Commended' written on them - so I feel that I can't finish this recollection without saying that, from my memory of the entries, Lee Mottershead, Marcus Armytage and Jon Lees all failed to make the cut but all count as worthy recipients of a 'Highly Commended' rosette at the least. Marcus wrote what I thought was the best individual article, an account of a visit he had paid to Enda Bolger's stable, for the Daily Telegraph. He was treated to a ride across the south Limerick countryside Bolger-style, and his account of the tour was outstanding. One item which springs to mind was that he wrote that before he went he had told a couple of trainers about his forthcoming adventure; one's reply was, "Oh good, you'll love it", while the other said, "It's been nice knowing you". Marcus then, having found out just what a white-knuckle ride it was, summed it up by saying, "It's definitely something to put on your list of ten things to do before you die - but just make sure you do the other nine first". Superb - as was Jon Lees' entry. It's always going to be hard for someone like Jon to win a prize like this, because feature writers are always going to have a big advantage over race reporters when it comes to producing critically-acclaimed stuff: the race-day reporter just has to get the facts down on paper quickly, and has neither the scope nor the time to produce arty prose. But, re-reading some of Jon's big-race reports from the Racing Post, I was reminded that one isn't going to find the job done any better than he consistently does it.

Moving from newspapers to novels, the day the on which selection committee met contained a side-benefit, because I used the trip to London as an excuse to visit Hatchards, whence I emerged well laden with books. One of these was a signed paperback copy of 'Restless' by William Boyd, writer of my all-time favourite novel 'Any Human Heart'. I finished reading 'Restless' a couple of weeks ago - I'd only started it a few days previously - and it is very good indeed. The narrator is a woman whose job is to teach English to students from overseas who come to Oxford for a small amount of weeks to hone their use of our language. (A similar scheme exists in Cambridge, as I know because we have acquired a friend from Poland called Marcin who calls in to see us whenever his employer, the Grassavoye Insurance Company, sends him to Cambridge for a week to continue the task of perfecting his already-good use of English). In the book, these men and women are instructed in the intricacies of our language (don't worry, that isn't the main thrust of the plot) such as knowing when to use the perfect, the imperfect, the pluperfect or the aorist tenses, or when to use the subjunctive rather than the indicative mood - and I've been musing over how these talented linguistic students would cope when confronted by the pidgin English which has become the norm in this country. (The book is set in 1976, and I believe cerebral standards in Britain have slipped hugely since then). What, for instance, would an overseas student make of hearing, as I did on At The Races recently in a review of a race in which the favourite had fallen at an early stage of a race, the phrase, "It was game over early doors"? The student might take a while to grasp that the reason why he didn't know what the pundit meant wasn't that his English wasn't good enough to understand her, but that it was too good. And why am I waffling on in this fashion? Because my quotation of the week is provided by John McNamara. As so often happens when he and I converse either on the telephone (as was the case yesterday) or in person, he started to bemoan the nonsense spoken by the talking heads of the television and radio, and that written in the newspapers. After repeating the latest meaningless cliche he'd heard, he came out with the following, "Ah, the vagaries of the English language - well, the English language is fine; it's just the people who use it!".

I'm currently reading the official biography of Vincent O'Brien, written by Ivor Herbert and Jacqueline O'Brien. I was given this book when it came out in the autumn of 2005, but I am ashamed to say that I am only now reading it for the first time. It is superb. There's so much to take out of it, including entertainment, inspiration and instruction. It is providing me with so much to think about, and one horse who has been in my mind a bit since reading one of the early chapters is, you may be surprised to learn, our own dear Ben Bhraggie. It sometimes seems as if Ben has been here forever, but in fact we've only had him for two and a bit years (ie I bought him as a yearling and he's now an untried four-year-old). But if he is taxing my patience (which he isn't - not yet, anyway), how did the connections of 1955 Grand National winner Quare Times keep the faith through his formative years? Quare Times was born in 1946, and was bought as a yearling at Ballsbridge in 1947 by Mrs Cecily Welman. She then turned him out on her farm in Westmeath until he was five, at which stage she had him broken and then sent him to Vincent O'Brien, whose first reaction was, "He'll take a long, long time". Quare Times made his debut as a six-year-old in 1952, and raced three times that year - once on the flat, once in an amateur maiden hurdle and once in a novice chase - finishing unplaced every time. 'He then ran into training difficulties, and could not run between November 1952 and December 1953" which meant that he celebrated his eighth birthday on New Year's Day 1954 with a career record of no wins from four starts, "but over the winter of 1953/'54 the horse's strength finally grew to match his size". He won a novice chase at Gowran Park in January 1954, the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham two months later and the following year's Grand National. And if that doesn't give a man hope, what does?