Test mania

We're now on day three of the Lord's Test, and Ashes fever should be gripping the nation. Whether it is or not I don't know, but it's certainly gripping me, despite the lack of pictures in this house. It was thus very appropriate that, denied the opportunity to use an Aussie on Douchkette yesterday, we should instead have used a hoop (Tom McLaughlin) who is a dead ringer for Glen McGrath, only a foot shorter.
The filly was beaten a long way, but I think that - although she'll probably love wet tracks in the fullness of time, just as her half-brother Kadouchski does - the soft ground probably made the margin of defeat more exaggerated than it would have been on a drier surface, the track having been hit by something like half an inch the previous night then what must have been more than an inch late in the afternoon yesterday. We had a monsoon-like deluge in the yard between 5.00 and 6.00 (as shown in this photograph, which doesn't really get across just how torrential the rain was) but the good thing about this time of year is that we don't remain waterlogged for too long, as long as it stops raining, and if today's pleasant conditions persist for a day or two we should soon be back to normal. We spend more than enough time mud-bound in winter without wanting too much of such conditions in summer.

Ashes fever can bring out some odd reactions. As I am neither English nor Australian, it's never obvious which side I should be barracking for, so basically I can just enjoy following a good game with some good individual performances.
True blue Aussies, however, should not be faced with such a dilemma of loyalties, which makes this text I received from (the pictured) Richard Sims towards the end of Strauss' fine innings rather strange: "Go Strauss ...... Go England!". It's hard to believe that this is the same guy who, twenty years ago, was as fair dinkum as they come, hanging out in the pubs in Earl's Court in the obligatory cork-adorned sun hat - and even going to the Munich Oktoberfest with a gang of his expatriate compatriots; but there you are. Still, whatever else one can say against Dickie, he's always ready to do someone a good turn, and one such which he has done for me recently is to send me a copy of 'Starting Price', the recently-published novel written by Jacquie Little, wife of the top-class Caulfield-based trainer Colin. I'm currently reading this book and am really enjoying it. The plot is very good and, while it might be overstating things to put it quite in the same class as Peter Temple's Jack Irish thrillers (which also feature plenty of Victorian racing), it's a good novel which anyone who likes racing, and particularly Victorian racing, will enjoy.

Reverting to the Test, Ponting's dismissal yesterday made me cast my mind back to a recent chapter of this blog. After I'd written to say that I find it regrettable that so few batsmen walk nowadays, Lawrence Wadey sensibly pointed out to me that the more often a batsman has been given out when he shouldn't have been - a fate which most people who play a lot of cricket will have suffered at some point - the more understandable it is that he takes the view that he should not miss any opportunity to redress the balance. Ponting's dismissal clearly brought this to mind, as he suffered the fate to which Lawrence was referring: the bowler appealed for lbw while the fieldsman appealed for a catch, and the third umpire's verdict that the catch was clean missed the crucial point that the batsman (as the bowler clearly knew) hadn't actually hit the ball. In a series in which English sportsmanship has already been called into question, I found it particularly unfortunate that the Australian captain should have been wrongly sent back to the pavillion.

You'd have thought that with all the racing that's taking place just now, with the Test and with the Open golf, that that would be enough to keep the Racing Post occupied. Not so, however, as anyone who has read the main section of today's paper will have found out, courtesy of the double-page spread on poker. (It rather reminds me of a very amusing scene from 'Amsterdam' in which, at an editorial meeting, the character who is in charge of the newspaper comes up with the great verdict, "A 16-page chess supplement? Frankly, I'm not convinced."). However, I think in this instance that the paper's bosses might be right, and that a double-page poker spread might be of more interest to the readership than traditional common sense would suggest would be likely to be the case. I can't say that it does anything for me, but it did grab my attention because it seems that poor James Willoughby is in the process of finding out that there is more to being the paper's chief correspondent than meets the eye. Particularly as he finds himself with a "$100 bounty on his head", whatever that means. I don't know what they will have in store for James next, but don't be surprised if you find him in the stocks at Sandown on Variety Club day, with Bruce Millington selling rotten eggs and tomatoes to passers-by at a pound a go.