Nice horsey

When I was a young lad - we're talking pre-teen (yes, my memory really is that good) - Saturdays could occasionally be really boring. If the boredom reached #8 or #9 on the scale, I might put the TV on and watch the afternoon sport, which in those days inevitably consisted mostly of horse racing.

It wasn't long before I discovered a talent for picking a winner, just by going on the name that appealed to me most. I can almost hear the experienced race-goers groaning at that, but this was years before I discovered that's a typical noob approach to racing and utterly frowned on by the cognoscenti.

Fast forward to Easter Sunday 2011 and here we are waiting for the turkey to cook and the guests to arrive, with one of Neil's favourite TV programmes hammering away in the corner: horse racing. And guess what, following immediately on the heels of my first win (I've already forgotten the name, but it was significant enough for me to pick it) comes Forever Awesome - chosen purely on the basis that its name is very similar to Forever Autumn, one of my favourite karaoke tracks of all time - and it's romping home by about five lengths.

So I've still not lost it. You can be 100% certain that if I were ever to start putting money on these nags, my gift would disappear as mysteriously as it came.