They wore Barbours and tweeds, fake policeman’s hats and little green badges that said “I was at the Canal Turn 95″.”I’ll give you a quote,” said Harry, a tall chap in a rowing cap with a plummy accent: “Life is a perpetual holiday.” “I’ll give you another,” said his friend James: “Trust funds are for life.” You get the picture.The axemen chopped away, to the minimal interest of the crowd The PA announcer broke in. At the remotest corner of the racecourse, it feels like a little country race meeting with only one event on the card.
There was a beer tent, a short row of bookies’ pitches, a hot dog van – and that was about it. There are no banks, no executive boxes, no women in smart anoraks handing out free cigarettes. The Canal Turn is a kind of racecourse within a racecourse.
It has its own atmosphere and traditions, and they are quite different from the crush and hurly-burly of the Aintree grandstand. But it was not animal rights activists dismantling the famous fence – just a troupe of Welsh axemen performing for the crowd. WALKING up to the Canal Turn at Aintree yesterday the thud of axes and the buzz of chainsaws filled the air. All that build-up and preparation, and then instant deflation and another year to wait. This year Tsuyoshi Tanaka, who came all the way from Japan to ride The Committee, was among seven to suffer there.
Jumbeau’s rider Simon McNeill, who joined him on the floor, said: “I was going so well, too”.. The mare returned with blood pouring from a gash on a hind leg, and she will join her half-brother Just So, second last year, in retirement. Her devoted owner-breeders, Henry and Veronica Cole, declared: “That’s it. Her next job will be to have babies.”There can be little worse in a steeplechase jockey’s career than falling at the first. He said: “I was nearly brought down at the third, and he took a bit of time to get going, but was travelling well when he fell. The experience was out of this world, and I can’t wait for next year.”One who won’t be back is Dubacilla, who stayed on to finish fourth after being outpaced on the fast ground.
