TELLY PUTS BINS IN BIN

Rolf Johnson sees Festival skip to Eurovision - other things don't change

- Rolf Johnson sees Festival skip to Eurovision - other things don't change

Cheltenham runners invariably knock your eye out - as the Festival mutates from Olympics to Eurovision. Cheltenham's all singing and dancing mega panoramic screen fills the naked eye. So what if, say, Windsor's (jumping) blocks off half the course? Not a bother; binoculars? Who needs 'em? Anyway, nowadays the race-readers are at home, sofa surfing, 'doing it off the telly'. Binoculars? Stacks of 'em on eBay.

There wasn't a monitor wide enough to capture Sean Bowen and Booster Bob in Newbury's Greatwood Chase. The commentator occasionally gave a mention to the remote tail-ender - who isn't invariably held up by the way - and Booster Bob's late-late turbo kick was only picked up on camera, scooting home from the last. Ditto Laurens Bay in the National Hunt Novices' Final at Sandown.

'What, eh, where did that come from?' Booster Bob was matched at 880-1. Why not 999-1? Laurens Bay was. Through wide-angle binoculars (10x42) you could see Sean Bowen was never losing more ground than the gap he'd surrendered early on. Ditto Laurens Bay. Bowen's timing on Booster Bob as the other 13 cut one another's throats, was spot on - good job too or stewards would have tut-tutted. At Hereford they'd excluded Sean's brother James from Cheltenham. The arbitrary whip rule struck again: can horses count?

A fine margin then, between one brother's ride of the season and another's last ride - for a while. "Bet not on objections for thou hast not the evidence and the stewards know not what they do" was the eighth of Phil Bull's 'Ten Commandments'. (Phil was a self-professed atheist and 'Red', if not under the bed: you or me were "brother" on good days).