John Major, Cromwell, the Countess Connexion, Wisbech, Tanning and Huntingdon Races

For most of my adult life, and some of the earlier bits as well, I have associated the Cambridgeshire town of Huntingdon with three things-

• the Countess of Huntingdon Connexion - a once very popular but now obscure Protestant sect which opened a lot of lovely, and now largely redundant, chapels across England in the 19th century. Most of those in the south of England have been converted into oh so tasteful open plan homes occupied by readers of the Guardian. 
• John Major - still a hero of mine despite his grey reputation. The MP for Huntingdon who achieved the biggest majority for any MP since the Napoleonic wars
• and of course, the racecourse.

I simply could not resist going there today when for the first time for 3 months we had the prospect of racing on ground which did not include the term 'heavy' in its description of the going. Huntingdon might have had problems in the past with flooding but this year it has been spared the worst of the El Nino effect.

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Huntingdon is a delightful rural racecourse, which despite its location immediately alongside the A1, has a local feel. Indeed so local that when you enter the Cromwell Bar (the Countess would presumably approve of the name, if not of what is sold there) everyone stops talking, turns round and looks at you as if to imply 'What's that soft southern Metropolitan liberal doing here?" 
One particularly ferocious Tractor Boy even came up to me said, "It's no good looking smug mate. We're greener than you". And indeed they were for Huntingdon racecourse is surrounded on its northern side by a wind farm. Sadly though none of the turbines were moving due to the absence of wind (note - probably best to draw a veil under that).
The decent going had attracted a lot of runners, filling up the lovely old-fashioned jockeys' board (possibly the last one in England?).
As well as the Cromwell Bar, there's a 'Favourites' Bar' (full of Channel4 pundits obviously) and delicious pork roll for just £4.20. The fence in front of the stand is an open ditch and makes for spectacular up-close viewing.
No doubt in part because of the sound conditions underfoot there were big fields for all the races, no non-runners and even my noble friend from Clonmel, Sir Mark Prescott (bt) had a runner in the mares bumper.
The crowd was big for a quiet Thursday. As a result the 16 bookies must have had a field day. They all had queues of punters wanting to get on, and 'Billy Bongo' (yes that really was the name of one of them) was particularly happy when the favourite got turned over in the big handicap chase. I could hardly believe it when I saw the owner of the winner, an eccentric gent called George Goring, collecting his winnings from the Tote window. He seemed pleased with his result, even though the 'Nanny' paid out a dividend of £12.20 (11/1) when his horse was freely available with said Billy Bongo at 25/1 before the off (and returned a SP of 22/1.)
Jeremy Kyle And Friends (come on name yourselves) ran their horse Stars Royale, who downed tools half way and had to be pulled up. He was sulking because the DNA test had just revealed that his father was actually a different horse to what his mum had told him.
The entertainment finished with two bumpers (flat races for jump horses). Up until now I have regarded these as complete guesswork from a punting point of view but I am developing a theory. There is virtually no form to go on but it is very hard to win more than one bumper because of the extra weight a horse has to carry when doing so. Put a line through any previous winner (often this rules out some of the lowest price horses). Many trainers have no bumper winners ever - basically they use these races to school their horses in public (technically illegal but impossible to prove). Horses from the big stables (Nicholls, Henderson, King etc) are initially priced on the reputation of their trainer. If they drift on course they tend not to win, if they remain solid in the betting, then there is a fair chance they will.
The horses to look out for are those from small and medium size stables which shorten in the betting  If the price reduces from double figures into single figures or lower, there is a fair chance it has shown something at home to the stable staff and it will place or win. There were two examples today. Storm Patrol, trained by Suzy Smith, was well backed into 3/1 and came 2nd to the Alan King trained solid favourite (well clear of the third). Beyond Measure, trained and owned by Don Cantillon, was brought into the paddock late, went down to the start early, and won well having been backed as though its previous poor form could be comfortably ignored. 
By the end of the meeting the low sun was hampering the viewing, but fortunately Huntingdon faces the right way so there was no danger and the horses and jockeys could still

see alright (Cheltenham and Sandown please take note).
Having hit the metaphorical bar again with my bets (3 seconds) I could not afford to stay at the on-course hotel (race day cheapest rates £105) so I opted for the Coach and Horses in the Fenland capital, Wisbech. What a place! It's got more Polish supermarkets than Warsaw, a Wetherspoons which does Ruddles for £1.69 a pint, the most ancient and attractive of town centres (including the home of National Trust founder Octavia Hill) and a very persuasive case to crown it the Tanning Salon Headquarters of England.

I finish though with a pic of the honours board from Huntingdon (most racecourses acknowledge the old heroes really well). It reminded me of the quality of horses that have run, and won, here in the past, including Wayward Lad and Edredon Bleu (an incredible 4 years running). Even that French jockey, Jacques Ricou won the big one here once. No doubt he found it easy to 'call a cab' to get back to the railway station after the last race.

Oh and here are my scores-

Huntingdon marks (out of 10)

Welcome/friendliness 7
Atmosphere 9
Betting ring (size, competitiveness) 4
Racecard (cost, quality) 8
Queues for the bar 7
Standard of racing 8

Total (out of 70) 43 

Punting success - lost

***** But tip wise I suggest you look carefully at any Warren Greatrex trained runner at the festival - he does not send them to Cheltenham unless they have a genuine chance of winning