Driving up from the Wirral on the Monday and the sky is cross with Liverpool.  It glowers, snubs and shuns it with drizzle and negativity.  Liverpool is in the dog-house. The mood peaks and troughs. It crescendos with savage showers over Sefton before, finally, a tumultuous soaking at Lancaster. It pours down on the county town. The gloom and wet put the headlights and brake-lights on.

Then,  a few miles north and it is Summer. The pleasure-drive stretch of the M6  contradicts the motorway’s mucky name and is uplifting. Sunshine. Hills becoming mountains as a big-sky North comes into view.  Off at Carlisle and a single satnav u-turn before finding the hotel. It is oddly placed up a winding driveway and plonked in the car park of a large NHS office block. It is ordinary and it is hot. But it’s OK. A luke-warm shower and a shave to smarten up for the track,  then a taxi.

It’s a nice feeling picking up the Owner’s badge. I guess that’s partly why we do it. The nice feeling. OntoAWinner Chris is downing dinner. It’s pie and peas in the Owners Bar. Complimentary. Chris is a real nice guy and make us feel welcome and involved. Ours, a 2yo filly, debuts in race 2. No luck with the bookies in the first but then we’re in the paddock, straining to hear what the trainer’s thinking.

Shaking the jockey’s hand. This is the third jockey’s hand I’ve shaken and all were very soft. Must be a technique, a tactic. It may be a coincidence – my sample is small. I shook the old Queen Mother’s hand once. It felt the same.
Nice guy, good jockey. There are no great expectations of our horse in her first run. It’s a schooling. I hear the trainer mutter a fancy, just loud enough for me to hear, trainer-style. That one wins and doubles our enjoyment of the race as we are quids in. Our horse is rousted as she learns the ropes. She will come on for today.

Four more races and a winner in the last, It’s all a pretty magical experience. The other guys who own a piece are interesting, kindly and unpretentious. It feels like my friend and I are the only ones backing horses – so these other chaps are pretty smart too. The Owners Bar is down-to-earth. We feel comfortable.

Carlisle town-centre on a Monday night is quiet. Wetherspoons pints and dry-roasted murmurings. Later, at the takeaway, we ask the woman about a taxi. She is about sixty and is missing London and family. I wonder why they moved to Carlisle but her English doesn’t come easy and I’ll never know. Her syllables are pre-thought and hard fought. Her eyes twinkle. She is a nice lady. Her husband speaks almost no English. He waits for us to eat and then drives us to the hotel himself. Leaves a real nice taste in the mouth. Turkish hospitality, Cumbria style.

The plan was to go home on Tuesday but there’s racing at Ripon and sunshine in the forecast. Am at a loose end so I point it south east. Route 66 over the tops delivers the goods. An ear-popping emerald upland landscape. A Great Grey Shrike flies overhead near Appleby. It’s the first tick for that one in my book. Road-signs say it’s the travellers fair on the weekend. Beyond the Appleby turn off there are horse-drawn caravans clopping the other way. I slow, on my side, so I don’t alarm the horses. I smile at the driver. He doesn’t smile back. The one behind is towing a wooden flat-bed trailer with 2 children aboard. It looks a simple life. There are only 3 or 4 of these caravans but they are enough to cause a tail back half the way to Scotch Corner. I’m glad I’m going the other way.

Parking up at Ripon you can see that it’s posh. I sit in the car and wonder whether to stay in shorts or change to last-night’s strides? I opt for the scruffy look and feel conspicuous going in. Lots of tweed and well-to-do Yorkshire folk. Two people mention my shorts in the first ten minutes but no more after that. It’s a lovely course. Lots of lawn and sunny spaces. Wooden benches and chips cooked in dripping. Bandstand and grandstand and smiles. I walk by the Owners Bar. An upstairs terrace allows them to look down on me.

A winner in the first sets me up and then I paddock-pick the winner in the big race. “Get him up James, Get him up James, GET HIM UP JIMMY!”. King Torus, 14-1 and ridden to perfection. What a win. I can’t help but notice that I was the only one cheering him home. Heads turn. They think me a shrewdie. I let them think it. It’s a nice feeling.