Good morning all,

The latest instalment of my life to date is on the main piece, and we are starting to get a bit closer to the present day. And finally, some racing!

Before we get to the racing bit, there’s a few other rather important things that happened first, one of which that eventually pushed me into the world of racing for good. So let’s tidy a few loose ends up to begin with.

I left W H Smith after a couple of years to manage a new independent bookmakers that had opened up in the town, but that didn’t work out and within a couple of years they had sold up and moved on. With a mortgage to pay and two wonderful children to feed, I needed work, and fast, so I took up a position with British Telecom, working on the phones, fixing people’s computers for them for them (I’ve always had some IT experience). As ever, I soon got moved up and was managing my own team within a year before BT decided to close our Derby desk and move all our work up to Dundee in a cost-cutting exercise. Out of work again.

So it was back to HMV, and to the store at Burton-On-Trent. Two very happy years there before the axe swung once again, and with HMV finding themselves in choppy waters and needing to close some stores, Burton sadly found itself on the wrong side of things*. We closed early 2013 and that was that. What next?

For the past couple of years I had been blogging about the racing. I found I had a bit more time to myself and started to do a bit of writing, doing a daily piece on the racing with a few tips thrown in. Using the nom-de-plume of Chutney Dave (Chutney being an old nickname, although God only knows why, I can’t stand the stuff) I started the One Late Last Lunge blog (it’s still out there, I use it occasionally) and things really took off. In no time at all I had 400 people a day reading it, and I started doing an audio preview on a Saturday. When I put up Cape Tribulation to win the 2013 Cotswold Chase as a strong recommendation, the phone started going mad after he got up in those dying strides. I think it was at that point I started to think I might be able to write for a living. But where is the opportunity coming from?

A month after HMV closes down, I get a message from someone, a total stranger. “I like a bet”, says the man, “ and when I follow your advices I seem to do rather well. When I follow my own instinct I do a lot less well. It makes sense to try and get you on board in some fashion. Can we meet up? I have a horse running at Ludlow next week. How does that suit?”

At this point, I am, of course, treating this with great suspicion. Is this some chancer? Am I wasting my time chasing this up? Anyway, I agree to meet him at Ludlow and have lunch with him and his trainer, Lawney Hill.

The good news is that we get on like a house on fire. We clearly share the same warped sense of humour, and a love of National Hunt racing, amongst other things. I’m invited into the paddock to look at his horse, King Caractacus, who, after an absence, looks in need of a run. Possibly two or three. He looks like he’s been on the sausage rolls a bit.

“Remind me again why we’ve bought this f*cking thing?” I’m both shocked and amused by the owner’s outburst. Lawney, clearly used to his ways, gives it back and the pair burst out laughing. It’s clear King Caractacus is no star and after he pulls up, he will have no more than three more runs before it is decided that horse racing is really not his thing.

Anyway, we have a chat after the race and it seems the owner is not a chancer, but very keen to basically offer me some sort of position. “Go away and have a think about it. We’ll meet up again at Bangor in a couple of weeks, another of mine runs there.” I went away, came up with a package that would basically pay the bills and food, and went back to him in a fortnight with the offer. It was agreed – plus a car, I’d need a car – and we had a deal.

I am proud and pleased to say that Andy Weller, the man in question, and I, became very good friends in a short space of time. I’ll never forget how Andy helped me get myself off the ground and into racing. Without him, there is no way I’d be doing what I do these days. The absolute delight I got from Andy having a Grade 1 winner at Punchestown with One Track Mind a few years back is almost immeasurable. He, and his friends, deserved that for every bad horse he’s ever owned. And he’s had a few of those, by his own admission.

Suddenly racing is my entire life, then. I’m going racing almost every day. The life I have always dreamed of has come true. I visit tracks I have never been to before, but that will become my regular haunts – Worcester, Wetherby, Southwell, even Fakenham, which I instantly fall in love with. I’m writing notes up on a daily basis, and because of the freedom I have, I’m able to continue blogging too, which only continues to grow.

It’s case now of “what next?”. You’ll find that out next week.

*I’d like to add something here. The list of stores that closed that spring was basically the 60 worst performing stores. Burton were number 1 on that list – in other words, if we’d been just one place better than we were, we would not have been on that list, and another store would have closed instead of us. But if that had happened, and I had continued working, would I ever have met Andy, and have the job I do now? Life works in mysterious ways, sometimes…

Until next week, stay safe.

David.