JONI MITCHELL is one of the iconic names of sixties’ music. It is pretty much my life’s work (well, the part of it which has happened since the sixties, anyway) to collect virtually every note of rock music to emanate from the second half of that magic decade.
However, Joni’s stuff had always struck me as a little, shall we say, twee, not to say tame and had been lacking from my collection. But when I spotted one of her original vinyl albums for sale for a very reasonable 99p in the local hospice charity shop, featuring one of the most evocative songs of that era, ‘Woodstock’, which I already own and cherish by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Ian Matthews’ Southern Comfort, I decided I must buy it.
I had somehow overlooked the fact that Joni actually wrote the song in the first place, so her own version is clearly entitled to be considered definitive.
Not that she hasn’t written some other decent stuff, and (here comes the real link into this column – not too clunky and obvious, I hope) I was thinking about that whilst sat in a car on my way to Darlington Station, having spent the previous day at Sedgefield racecourse where I had witnessed the latest running of the Sean Magee Full Set Durham National, the fourth successive year that racing journalist and all round good egg Sean Magee had sponsored a race at the track to mark the fact that it was there that he completed his ‘full set’ of all the UK’s racecourses.
In previous years the race had coincided with some of the most ferocious weather the country can conjure up, and although that wasn’t quite the case this time it did coincide with one of the most ferocious viruses I have managed to acquire in recent years.
As ever, a mixture of Sean’s friends turned up for what has become an annual highlight of the racing calendar.
Old pals like Steve Dennis and David Ashforth of the Racing Post made the pilgrimage; as did Weatherby’s Dr Paull Khan; academic and racing author Rebecca Cassidy was making her debut, which coincided with the imminent publication of a book you really need to own if you are serious about racing – ‘The Cambridge Companion to Horseracing (Cambridge University Press) which Rebecca, who, I should mention, just happens to be a professor of anthropology, no less, has edited. Mr Magee has contributed an evocative piece about racing festivals to the tome, but don’t let that put you off!
Ace snapper, Hugh Routledge, who once went to a race meeting to aim his camera for the Times, only to end up presenting the trophy for the main event of the afternoon, was also on hand to record the events of the day for posterity.
Oh, and two denizens of this very parish, Mary and Chris Pitt were there in tandem – with Chris basking in the glow of Derek ‘Tommo’ Thompson’s slightly myopic greeting to him of ‘Hey, Big Fella’.
I wasn’t, it has to be admitted, functioning at full capacity on the day, as my vocal cords had decided to pack up, so efforts to speak resulted in little more than a variety of squeaks, grunts and embarrassing silences.
Situation pretty much normal, then.
David Ashforth was disappointed to note that the course did not have a large screen – pretty much standard issue at most tracks these days - but what it most certainly did have was a rejuvenated Tommo, apparently flinging off recent minor setbacks like being removed from the Morning Line and suffering a bout of cancer.
Dear old Tommo – he may not be to every racegoer’s taste, but, believe me, we will really be somehow reduced and deprived when, finally,one day he isn’t there any longer.
Who else will cajole people to put their losing betting tickets into a bucket for a draw to win free tickets to the course’s up-coming Bollywood night or a huge bag of sweets from not just the course’s sweetshop, but THE BEST SWEETSHOP IN THE WORLD!?
He whipped up a tremendous atmosphere for each Ryan Mania mount and he went into full overdrive when not only did the Grand National winning jock ride a hat trick but was also reunited in the parade ring with his Aintree hero, Auroras Encore.
Prior to the big race, HIS race, Sean had phoned his great friend Peter O’Sullevan, who was sadly languishing in hospital, to persuade the Grand Old Man to provided the assembled masses with a tip for the main event.
Peter obliged, and there was a genuine outpouring of warmth at the news relayed by Tommo to racegoers that Peter had taken the trouble to give the assembled racegoers the benefit of his experienced opinion from his sick bed.
No one cared a jot that the horse was beaten.
My voice, Tommo, Peter O’Sullevan, giant racecourse screens – my world would be a far worse place for the absence of them all.
In fact, as the earlier mentioned Joni Mitchell once remarked in another of her excellent, timeless and wise songs ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’.
I was still sitting in the car en route to Darlington Station when it finally occurred to me where that lyric came from – of course, it was ‘Big Yellow Taxi’.
And where was I at the time? Yes, in a small, dirty reddish cab…….
Despite the vanishing vocals I had still managed to walk the course before racing together with clerk of the course, Phil Tuck, and a few of the hardy Magee crew. It was a very enjoyable experience, with Mr Tuck regaling us with various stories of his own lengthy riding career and his time at Sedgefield.
Mind you, he made not a mention of ducks on the way round – nor did any of us spot any of the creatures peeking out of any of the jumps, which made it all the more surprising that just a couple of meetings later the course had to announce that they would be missing out one of the fences as a duck was nesting in, or at the foot of, it.
The papers had a field day with the story – coming out with pun-filled headlines, rhyming duck with Tuck and other words – such as Luck, and Muck, for example.
But the clerk of the course came out of the situation unscathed – quite rightly in my opinion - canardly have been his fault!
I’ll get my coat. Thank you and goodnight.n
* The story of Sedgy Sally, as the mum-to-be mallard was named, caught the media’s imagination and set Sedgefield racecourse’s Facebook and Twitter accounts alight.
She took up residence in the apron of fence number six – the first one past the stands – and promptly laid six eggs.
After hurriedly researching the matter, Phil Tuck discovered that it was illegal to disturb the nest of a wild bird, even if he’d been inclined to do so, hence the need to bypass the fence.