Harry's Game Is Tonic To Lift Flat Blues

Nov 2 2008 Joe Punter

EVERY era needs its larger than life characters and racing is blessed to have the fearless Harry Findlay brightening our days.

The legendary punter and owner has proved he has cojones the size of boulders by the way he puts big lumps of his sizeable wedge where his mouth is on the betting front.

And it's all plotted from his Wiltshire HQ where he has more big screens installed than all the secret services lumped together.

But Findlay is best known as the owner of Gold Cup hero Denman and it's great that the French equivalent, the Grande Steeple-Chase de Paris, is on his radar.

The Auteuil race has a couple of fearsome jumps that should only be tackled with the aid of a Sherpa guide and an oxygen mask but that doesn't faze our Harry.

In an age when Flat horses are wrapped in cotton wool and sent off to to stud duties with indecent haste it would be wonderful to see such a star chaser as Denman strut his stuff across the Channel.

And it would also be terrific to see him carve a similar place in folklore as iron man Fred Winter who won the same race back in 1962 on Mandarin.

The bold Fred had to steer his mount by its mane after the bit broke at fence four - two great champs giving their all.

Does the Flat have anything to equal that as a spectacle?

SO Great Leighs are pleading for more backing in staging Group races on the Polytrack surface.

Perhaps they should also call Rent-a-crowd for their support.

Otherwise you might just see a top-quality event unfolding in front of an audience of two men and a bored sheepdog.

HAMILTON punter Willie McIntyre has a pint or two on with his big mate Hughie that Kieren Fallon followed Frankie Dettori as champion jock.

Sorry, Willie, you'll just have to stay thirsty for a while.

Back in 1996 former main man Pat Eddery re-took the top spot from the Italian stallion before Fallon reigned for seven out of the next eight years. Kevin Darley broke his run midway through.

PORT GLASGOW'S Agnes Small has been racking her brains trying to remember the mare who shocked the boys in the Champion Hurdle about 15 years ago.

Agnes, you must be thinking of Flakey Dove who did indeed land the big one in 1994.

But at 9-1 she wasn't without her supporters although she was only the second of her sex to win the race after the great Dawn Run 10 years previously.

GOT a racing query? Write to Joe Punter, Sunday Mail, One Central Quay, Glasgow G3 8DA, email joepunter@sundaymail.co.uk