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S E T T I N G T H E T O N E F O R H O W T H E G A M E I S P L A Y E D • F I T Z D A R E S . C O M • S I X T H E D I T I O N , S U M M E R 2 0 1 7 • S T R I C T LY N O U N D E R 18 s

DIARY The day I became a star on the Walk

MAGIC ACT Favela to the Far East

BY BRETT RATNER

BY GRAHAM CUNNINGHAM

LOW LIFE When I took on the Whale and lost

GOOD CALL! Nick Robinson picks ten canny decisions

BY JAMES OSBORNE

The race to break the two-hour barrier By Michael Crawley

HE MARATHON is a curious distance. Now standardised at 26.2 miles, it originates with the story of Pheidippides, who ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the defeat of the Persians. The accuracy of this legend has since been questioned. Herodotus wrote that Pheidippides actually ran from Athens to Sparta and back – a distance of 150 miles each way. Modern marathon runners will be relieved that it is the former legend that has taken oﬀ. Pheidippides presumably ran without GPS assistance, but Google Maps puts Marathon to Athens at a lesser 21 miles. The marathon distance was only formally standardised in 1921, having been extended to accommodate the viewing preferences of the British royal family at the 1908 London Olympics. A race held on the original Marathon-Athens route would also be against IAAF rules, which state that the start and finish must be separated by no more than half the total race distance. Now, with the marathon distance so steeped in legend, an obsession with

running it in less than two hours has developed. There are three projects aiming to run a marathon in 1:59.59 or faster in the near future. The first, the Sub2 project, was launched by sports scientist Yannis Pitsiladis a few years ago, and he was swiftly followed by announcements from Nike and Adidas. Pitsiladis now portrays his project as the underfunded underdog, posting photos on Twitter of his team driving around Addis Ababa in an ancient VW Beetle. Nike’s project, as you might expect, is more cutting-edge, both in terms of its science and its rhetoric. It is working, according to its website, on nothing less than “reaching the future faster, rewriting history and the possibilities of human potential in the process”. It has – of course – a new shoe, as does Adidas. Nike’s is scytheshaped and bulbous – for a project that claims to be equivalent to “putting man on the moon” it certainly looks the part. Adidas posted a photo of its own shoe on its Instagram account after February’s Tokyo Marathon. Wilson Kipsang stands at a busy intersection, an intense look in his

eyes, the shoes he wore in the race (“energy blue”) held up in oﬀering for the camera. A video piece on Wired magazine’s website shows Matthew Nurse, director of Nike’s Sport Research Lab, who tells us that he has shown the new shoe to the brand’s external partners, and that “their best scientifical [sic] term was they’re just magical ”. The emphasis, then, is firmly on the “product”:

These attempts are not about the shoes or thermometers. They are about the transcendent talents. a special Swedish carbohydrate drink in the case of the Sub2 project, shoes and apparel for Nike and Adidas. All this puts the lab, and “technology”, before the athlete. My coach – very much an old-school, tried-and-tested 100-miles-aweek sort of guy – likes to tell a story about one of his contemporaries. In the early days of sports physiology, he underwent some lab testing in the hope of gleaning some useful

information to fine-tune his training. They cut a small slice out of his thigh muscle to do a biopsy, causing him to hobble around for several days afterwards. When he finally got the eagerly anticipated results of the test, he was told that the biopsy “indicated that he could sustain a fast pace for quite a long time”. My coach laughs at this. His friend’s response, apparently, was: “I bloody knew that already!” This is the problem with all three projects: the “science” seems merely to confirm what the athletes already know. Still, it is presented as an accumulation of variables and insights that can make the three-minute diﬀerence between the current world record of 2:02.57 and 1:59.59. While the Nike project’s website is all about using the latest technology to move the marathon world record forward, Eliud Kipchoge’s interview with a local Kenyan newspaper made his feelings clear: “This eﬀort,” he said, “won’t require a robot or superman drilled to perfection by scientific faith and medicine, but a good, time-tested human heart, blood and sheer resolve.” →

02 → He added that his training would all take place at his rural Kaptagat camp. It would be directed by his coach of more than 15 years, Patrick Sang, with the occasional “improvised” gym session and a diet of rice and beans. On 6 May at 5:45am, Kipchoge, Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea and Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia started running on Monza racetrack in Italy behind a phalanx of blackclad pacemakers and a Tesla car with a huge clock on the back. The car was driven by two professional drivers: one to steer, the other to maintain a perfectly even pace. Nike had left no variable unconsidered, having scoured the globe for the best possible running conditions. Special aerodynamic tape on the runners’ legs was intended to make a difference of a fraction of a per cent. Tiny thermometers swallowed by the runners would allow scientists to measure the athletes’ core temperatures. The pacemakers – a revolving cast of 30 that included Olympic medalists – would offer another fraction of a per cent. The shoes were expected to offer another slight improvement. The athletes had been narrowed down from 60, to 18, to three. Desisa had been ‘consistently in the top three’ in all the lab testing, including VO2 max and running economy.

UST AFTER 7:45AM, Kipchoge crossed the finish line in Monza in a scarcely believable two hours and 25 seconds. Just before 8am, Desisa finished, almost 14 minutes behind Kipchoge. Tadese, the world record holder for the half-marathon, ran 2:06.51. Kipchoge, not the shoes, not the pacing formation, and certainly not the aerodynamic tape, was the real variable in this experiment. Kipchoge is, and has been for almost a generation, a class apart from anyone except perhaps the mercurial Kenenisa Bekele, poster-boy for the Sub2 project. An old YouTube video makes this point better than I can: the 2003 World Championships 5,000m, billed by the commentators as a

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further down the running hierarchy. This is how the coach I knew put it: “When a record is broken, everyone becomes happy, don’t they? I am not happy. Why? Because as a coach the bar has been raised. It can make you lose hope. Now the men’s record is 2:02.57, you are expected to run 2:01!” In the lower echelons of the sport, this raising of the bar can be the diﬀerence between a promising career and a careerthreatening injury. As the bar is raised, so too are the risks. Countless young runners in Ethiopia told me that the keys to success were consistency, patience and gradual improvement. These are all, by definition, absent from the two-hour projects. Still, I must admit that I was as intrigued as any other athletics fan to see how fast Kipchoge could run at Monza. But for me, these attempts are not about the shoes or the ingestible thermometers. They are about the transcendent talents who can take something like the two-hour marathon and make it look even remotely possible. While Nike, Adidas and the Sub2 project

A near miss for Eliud

look for improvements in performance by investing in science and medicine, or by oﬀering financial incentives, it may well be that such approaches do the opposite of what they intend. As geographer John Bale points out, the standards in the ‘work-like’ athletic events of distance running tend to fall with increased economic development. Many of the Ethiopians I met were sceptical about whether we will see another athlete as driven as Bekele. Up-and-coming athletes of today are too distracted by technology, too tempted by life in the city, they told me. And why shouldn’t they enjoy themselves? Kipchoge may well be the best marathon runner ever to grace the planet, and even he couldn’t break two hours in perfectly contrived conditions. I would be very surprised if we saw a marathon run in under two hours in an oﬃcial race within the next quarter of a century. ■ Michael Crawley is an anthropologist

researching the links between long-distance running and development in Ethiopia.

Kipchoge

clash between Hicham El Guerrouj and Kenenisa Bekele that would decide the athlete of the year. Not until the last lap do they mention Kipchoge. “El Guerrouj,” the commentator intones breathlessly, “has Chebii back in fourth place and he’s got Bekele in third and another Kenyan right there, that’s...” That was an 18-year-old Eliud Kipchoge, ready to blow past everyone to win with a 53-second last lap. “You hear about child prodigies that can play the piano,” the commentator says in the aftermath, “but how can you do that at 18? You should be in high school.” Kipchoge has been at the top of his sport for 14 years. He is spoken of in reverential tones by athletes from all over East Africa. I watched his commanding performance in the London marathon last year from the race hotel of the Istanbul half-marathon, with a young Ugandan named Somikwo. “Kipchoge is like a ghost,” he told me. “You run two minutes 30 for one kilometre and you cannot hear him, but he is there.” His style is perfectly suited to the marathon. He flows, and he flows very fast. So when the Footwear Innovation VP of Nike, Tony Bignell, said before the attempt that he was “super-confident in the product, but I also know that’s got to translate to the human beings” actually running the race, before adding that “we’re doing everything we can to put them on the start line to be able to achieve their goal”, it made me feel uncomfortable. Kipchoge has already done mind-blowing things in running, and projects like this threaten to devalue his achievements. When Bignell said that Nike had done all it can, he implied that Kipchoge was to blame if the project ‘failed’. What happens when the idea of a twohour marathon – out of the reach of even the majestic Kipchoge – becomes normal? That is what these projects are doing, and from my experience of working as an anthropologist with Ethiopian runners, it seems that this is having knock-on eﬀects

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2017

04 SPEAKER’S CORNER John Inverdale

TIME FOR A LEAP OF FAITH

HASE CAREY SOUNDS LIKE A MOVIE STAR, and in his new role as chief executive of Formula One he is coming over as a cross between Michael Douglas in Wall Street and a senior official in the White House. He exudes power. There’s something about cufflinks. But you don’t get to be as big a player as he is without walking, and talking, an awful lot of sense, so when he talks about Formula One’s predictability and its lack of competition as being a major turn-off for a lot of sports fans and commercial organisations, the industry listens. How the sport adapts and changes in the coming years will in many ways be far more interesting than the races themselves. Which takes us back to the Cheltenham Festival, and forward to the future of jump racing. There is no greater event in the sporting calendar – “period” – as Chase Carey might say. But driving away from jump racing’s home on the Friday afternoon, after the empires of Gigginstown and McManus, Elliott and Mullins had dominated the four days in the manner of Mercedes and Ferrari, and you had to wonder about what direction the festival was heading in. Jump racing has never been flat racing, and that’s its greatest joy. It was always a sport with a bit of business, as opposed to flat being a business with a bit of sport tossed in. The lack of breeding opportunities post-racing career ensured that it retained a very egalitarian air in terms of competition. But not anymore. To attend the sales ring at Cheltenham on the Thursday night was to see hands raised to buy equine stars of the future like at an IPL auction. Does anybody really care about the IPL? A fast-food takeaway sporting event that is hugely enjoyable at the time and utterly forgettable less than 24 hours later. It is not just idle nostalgia to recall the victories of Norton’s Coin, and more recently Coneygree in the Gold Cup. Elements of romance are essential in giving a broader brush to sporting events. The FA Cup may have ended up with four of its biggest clubs in the semi-finals, but Lincoln City and Sutton United made last season’s competition one of the most memorable in years.

So that’s the challenge facing jump racing at a time when the best horses cost lots of money, the pool of potential buyers gets smaller and smaller, while the number of ‘smaller’ trainers in financial trouble gets larger and larger. Is it feasible to restrict the number of horses in a race that are either owned or trained by the same person? Is it legally possible, desirable or even ethically justifiable to restrict the number of horses that an individual can have with a single trainer? Why should National Hunt racing not be subject to the simple laws of supply and demand that drive every other sport? If you can’t aﬀord to buy a good horse, then settle on the 3.40 at Market Rasen. Let the big dogs play on the biggest stage, even if they have it to themselves.

Jump racing was always a sport with a bit of business, as opposed to flat being a business with a bit of sport tossed in.

UT THAT’S THE PROBLEM. When you get to a point where only the few can win, the product is diminished in the eyes of not only its devotees, but also the occasional onlooker, and the prospective investor – be that in terms of time or money. When it comes to the Abramovich’s of jump racing, no one doubts their lack of commitment to, or love of the sport. Their passion is undisputed and their joy in victory (and equally their despair when tragedy befalls one of their horses) is clear for all to see. Albeit, we’re only at the start of this cycle, so let’s have an honest discussion about it now, before the eight runners in the 2022 Gold Cup are all owned by just two people and come from just two yards, whichever they might be. Is there something that everyone involved in this sport can do to maintain its unique flavour and competitiveness? Cheltenham’s exponential upward curve towards the pinnacle of the sporting calendar has been a joy to watch and to be part of. Predictability could be its undoing in the years to come. Ask Chase Carey. ■ John Inverdale used to skip school to go and watch the Gold Cup and now

presents BBC Radio Five Live’s coverage of the Cheltenham Festival.

A remarkable 13 of the Irish Grand National’s 28 starters in April carried the colours of Gigginstown House Stud

N Â° 3 C L I F FO R D ST R E E T , LO N D O N , W 1 S 2 L F DRAKES.COM

06 James Osborne recalls the time a casino high-roller cleaned up in an unlikely Australian outpost

DARWIN’S SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST T

HREE YEARS AFTER I had gone to Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory to run the high-stakes Aspinall Room in the Diamond Beach Hotel Casino, I met ‘The Whale’, Akio Kashiwagi. In 1984, Aspinalls was invited by the NT government to come and operate its two casinos – Darwin and Alice Springs – which it had compulsorily purchased (a democratic first!). For 20 years the big gamblers of the world had been from Arabia, but a move east was under way, and Darwin is just four hours from Jakarta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, where many hugely rich Chinese gamblers lived. John Aspinall (‘Aspers’) thought it a clever move to get in early and open an Aspinall Club within the existing casino complex. In 1987, I moved with my family to Darwin and all was going well when one of our investors, Ong Beng Seng, suggested I fly to Tokyo to meet Las Vegas’s biggest Baccarat player, Kashiwagi. I persuaded him that we were in the same time zone, and we would match the stake he was allowed in Caesar’s Palace of US$250,000 (around AU$330,000 at the time). Later that month, I chartered BS Ong’s G5 and flew back to Tokyo to collect him, and in two days he won AU$10 million. We had just enough money to meet the cheque, and two weeks later he came again and won AU$6 million. He did, however, bring a friend in Hideaki Watase, who lost AU$6 million, so all was well.

The casino world was agog. The biggest game in the world was happening somewhere most of them had never heard of. We sent tapes of the game to Aspers’ friend, Steve Wynn, in Las Vegas. His security people found nothing untoward. Our Chinese partners arranged for a very expensive feng shui man to visit us, and we were obliged to alter and refit doors, hide a net in the ceiling above

The casino world was agog. The biggest game in the world was happening somewhere most of them had never heard of. the table, and place a fish tank next to it. Just after Christmas 1990, he came and won AU$5 million. He must have nobbled the feng shui man! Our Singaporean shareholders with Aspers and James Goldsmith had to transfer funds to the Chemical Bank of NY in Tokyo. Aspers and Jimmy were all for continuing, and the Singaporeans reluctantly agreed to one more go. Kashiwagi arrived at 6pm on our chartered jet (costing US$50,000 a time) and left at 6am the next morning having gambled all night, winning AU$5 million. He was AU$26 million up in total. I knew it was the end. My options in the business after three years in Darwin were worthless. The casino was broke, saved only by the cash

Akio ‘The Whale’ Kashiwagi

injections of the owners. I went home, which was empty as my family were all in London for the Christmas holidays, and frantically cleaned all my shoes. To this day if my wife sees me cleaning shoes (infrequent), she asks: “What’s wrong, darling?” Kashiwagi flew to the Taj Mahal Trump Casino in Atlantic City. He did a deal with Trump whereby the game stopped, win or lose, at $12 million either way. He was $10 million down when the casino stopped the game, reneging on the deal. Kashiwagi left with $2 million in chips. He went to Las Vegas and lost $10 million, and then to the Ritz in London, where he lost £6 million. He went to Paris, where he played in a poker game and lost just $1,500. He was told the game was crooked and stopped the cheque. The French contacted their friends in the Yakuza, who stabbed him to death with 150 wounds from a Samurai sword – all for a fraction of any one bet of his. The moral of the story is, if the game is crooked, pay up quickly! ■ James Osborne co-founded Fitzdares and is a former MD of Aspinalls.

1 9 0 8 – 2 0 0 8 . T H E C E N T E N A R Y O F S I R W I N S T O N C H U R C H I L L’S F I R S T O R D E R O F P O L R O G E R

I’ve always just been a director and producer, but never a business

owner in terms of having a movie company. One day I got a phone call from James Packer with a huge idea: “We are probably the only two people in the world that can have ‘RatPac’ as a name and not look like Frank Sinatra ‘Rat Pack’ wannabes. Let’s start a movie company.” I was incredibly flattered, because he can do business with anyone but he picked me. We jumped in in a big way, not dissimilar to condensing a Harvard Business School degree into a few months! We decided to finance all of Warner Brothers’ movies. We got incredibly lucky – our first two films were Gravity and The Lego Movie, which were huge box-oﬃce hits. We committed to 75 movies over four years, and you have to be pragmatic about it. I’m fully aware that it’s not going to be plain sailing – this is Hollywood, and not every movie is going to be a smash hit. We decided to make a bet on every single movie. But if you believe in the company and the vision, you won’t go too far wrong.

If I wasn’t in the movie business, I would be in the casino business. I just love it! It’s a form of entertainment – what you’re selling is adrenalin, but that’s what movies do too. We are selling an experience, and telling a story. In Rush Hour 2 I had a big casino scene, and Rush Hour 3 had a gambling scene in a small French casino. Ocean’s Eleven was my idea, along with Jerry Weintraub, but I wasn’t available because of my commitments to Rush Hour 2. For me, it was an organic partnership. I grew up in the casino business – my grandfather financed casinos in Vegas and Cuba. It was through this connection that I was able to meet Steve Wynn. I needed a casino to shoot Rush Hour 2. Steve Wynn had just bought the Desert Inn and was going to blow it up to build what is now Wynn Las Vegas. We needed to shoot in an empty casino, mainly due to Jackie Chan being so famous. I remember I cold-called Mr Wynn, who was taken aback by how ballsy I was, phoning up this supersuccessful businessman who had batted oﬀ numerous other people asking to use his casino for other work. It was only after I told him my surname that he asked if I was in fact related to Lee Ratner: “Yes! That is my grandfather!” That opened up the dialogue and I was able to persuade him to let me use his casino for three months. It all tied in so nicely, essentially melding the two things I love the most in the world: gaming and film. The process for receiving a star (on the Walk of Fame) is, you get

nominated – it was Warner Bros that put my name up – and then a committee votes for you. It is an incredible honour and one that I am immensely proud of. The actual ceremony doesn’t happen until 5-6 months after you are told,

DIARY

by Brett Ratner HOLLYWOOD BLVD

Another thing that struck me was just the incredible turnout of people. They literally had to shut the street, but then I realised it might have been because of the other stars that came to support me!

Brett Ratner (second left) with Brad Pitt, Martin Scorsese, Robert de Niro, James Packer and Leo DiCaprio

so it is a long process. I remember when I found out I called my mum and my grandmother, who were just as excited as I was – it was pretty wonderful, something I never thought would happen. That sounds so clichéd, but I got into film to make movies and this was the icing on the cake. It was definitely something that has focused the mind and is justification that I am doing something worthwhile, and to be recognised for it is always a wonderful bonus. The thing that shocked me the most was the placement of the star. I am right in front of where the Academy Awards are hosted. I’m also right next to Jackie Chan on the Walk. I’m not sure if it’s customary to put a director and actor together, but I was taken aback by the placement of the star. I think if you asked anyone where the most prestigious place to have your star is, it’s probably outside the TCL Chinese Theatre, and not even Jackie Chan is outside that! So being right next door to that was an incredible honour. Another thing that struck me was just the incredible turnout of people. They literally had to shut the street, but then I realised it might have been because of the other stars that came to support me! The Rock, Eddie Murphy, Edward Norton and Chris Tucker were all there. It’s usually just one studio that sends their representatives – the one that nominates you – but in this case I was humbled and emotional as I had the heads of five diﬀerent studios there.

I can’t tell you how flattered I was that the likes of Eddie Murphy came. The thing that touched me the most was he said: “I have done over 40 films, and I’m not friends with a single director, Brett is the only one! By the way, we didn’t even make a hit together. Usually when you make a bomb of a movie you never want to see the other person ever again.” I brought my grandmother, who is 94, as my date. I remember not being too nervous when I made my acceptance speech – I had written it and practised it two weeks before, so I was feeling pretty good about things. Jackie Chan has always called me the luckiest man in the world. This was pretty evident at the ceremony, where I remember it raining every day that week. But for the two hours when I got my star, it was beautiful sunshine. ■ Brett Ratner and business partner James Packer formed RatPac Entertainment,

a film finance production and media company, in 2013. RatPac’s co-financed films have been nominated for 52 Academy Awards, 20 Golden Globes and 39 Baftas and have won 21 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and 17 Baftas.

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Dancing Brave nearly ruined the bookies in 1986. Mark Cancea relives an antepost roller-coaster In 1986, a horse called Dancing Brave took antepost betting and the industry to a place no one ever thought possible. In all my years work-

ing in the betting industry, I have never witnessed or been on the end of a gamble quite like the one we saw in the lead-up to the Epsom Derby. The Derby was run on Wednesday 4 June 1986 – I literally remember it like it was yesterday. I say this because I was working (for Ladbrokes) on the Spring bank holiday weekend – 10 days before the Derby – and we were sitting on a sizeable antepost liability on the impressive Shahrastani, the Michael Stoute-trained horse who had won the Dante. Shahrastani was the horse we couldn’t see being beaten, and was chalked up at 5/1. Two weeks before the Derby, Shahrastani was a £30,000 loser for us (in our book) and as a result was reflected in his 9/2 antepost price. Dancing Brave was 10/1. The Sporting Life headlined on the bank holiday Monday

an article with jockey Greville Starkey dispelling any rumours that Dancing Brave wouldn’t stay the 1m 4f trip. Dancing Brave had done a proper piece of work at Coombelands (Guy Harwood’s stable) on the Sunday and there was palpable excitement that this was a genuine class horse, capable of doing something very special. As Starkey said in his interview, “Dancing Brave would stay 10 miles, let alone the 1m 4f.” There were always doubts about his staying the trip due to his sire Lyphard, and because of this breeding and the super-impressive Shahrastani, we couldn’t see Dancing Brave mounting much of a challenge. There was a perceived view within the Ladbrokes ranks that Dancing Brave was a class horse, but would never stay the trip. How wrong were we… We started fielding our first calls for Dancing Brave on that Sunday afternoon. The important thing to note here was that the general public wouldn’t have been privy to the Starkey article until Monday morning, so the calls on the Sun-

day would have been very much clients with connections into the yard. We laid him at double-figure prices – nothing was out of the ordinary at that point. As the hours drifted by, however, it became clear that Dancing Brave was becoming something of a gamble. Our prices were being slashed every half-hour, and by 5pm he was down from 10/1 to 8/1!

This had become the mother of all gambles.

Dancing Brave had caught fire and there was nothing we could do about it. What went from being a connection gamble had turned into a public gamble the next day. We closed our telephone credit betting lines at 6pm on that Monday with Dancing Brave now our antepost favourite at 4/1. Our telephone credit business alone was a £150,000 loser for us (the equivalent of more than £400,000 today). We were staring down the barrel and it was extraordinary. I can’t stress enough the significance of a gamble like this

11 Mark (right) with Gerald Green in 1986

back then. To move a price from 10/1 into 4/1 was unheard of. As I touched upon earlier, these were solid markets; the Derby was the second biggest horse race of the year from a gambling perspective, and this horse had moved a market that we were confident couldn’t be moved to that extent. Demand also didn’t relate to the price. With the Derby you would see money for all horses, and we were still laying bets on Shahrastani, but it was so lopsided.

Dancing Brave closed at 7/2 the week of the Derby. The mood in the oﬃce was a strange one, not nec-

essarily because of the extraordinary liability we now had on the horse, but also because we had all backed Shahrastani at the start of the week and still actually couldn’t see him being beaten. They say there’s a fine line between arrogance and stupidity, and in this situation that line was slowly disappearing. I guess edgy would be the best word to describe the mood. We certainly were still confident that Shahrastani, who had now been eased to 11/2, would do a job for us. It’s amazing what can cloud your judgement sometimes, I guess. The accuracy of knowing what our liabilities were back in 1986 was probably about 75 per cent. This sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. To be that far out, not knowing what you’re sitting on, is unheard of in this day and age. The issue we had was all our betting shops had a points system they worked on where any bet under £200 didn’t have to be rung through to a trader (on normal horse racing days this figure was £100), so we were always a little blind come race day. Every time Dancing Brave was backed in a shop for a stake of less than £200 (multiples and forecasts included), the bets never went into a fieldbook

gamble we did well. But even so, I don’t think the saying ‘fortune favours the brave’ is completely true.

Antepost betting really isn’t what it was back then. There is a remarkable diﬀerence between what

you get on with bookies now and what you used to be able to get on when I was trading director at Ladbrokes. Antepost betting markets now account for a fraction of what a firm will take on a race – the complete opposite of what it was like in 1986. The importance of antepost betting has decreased over the years, to the point where these markets will never significantly aﬀect the liability on the day for any horse race. The money that really aﬀects a bookmaker today is money taken

They say there’s a fine line between arrogance and stupidity, and that line was disappearing… – these bet slips were counted a couple of hours before the race and the total number of Dancing Brave selections were called out to us, rather than a liability figure. It was guesstimation at its disastrous best. On the day of the race, Dancing Brave was 7/2 favourite, with Shahrastani 5/1. What we saw in the period before the start was nothing short of incredible. Dancing Brave would be backed again, and would go off at 2/1, with Shahrastani going off 11/2. The weight of money backing Dancing Brave was incomprehensible. The only way to try to explain the mindnumbing numbers, with 50 per cent of bets taken on the race going on Dancing Brave, is if the Tote had a monopoly on racing, Dancing Brave would have been sent off at even money!

Our total liability on the race for Dancing Brave across all platforms was now over £1,000,000. In the space of 10 days, Dancing Brave had

gone from being a winner for us to being a result that would have crippled our own antepost betting service and completely destroyed our credit betting service. Because of the finger-in-the-air nature of liability, the loss was anything between £1 million and £1.2 million, with absolutely no hedging in sight – an eye-watering amount to lose. The race, to be honest, was a bit of a blur. The gamble on the day for Dancing Brave had shattered any confidence we had in Shahrastani and there was a palpable sense of loss among us. The atmosphere was weighing us down and it didn’t look as if there was any way out. There is so much conjecture about the race. Was it a poor ride from Starkey? Did the trip actually suit Dancing Brave? I’ve watched the replay of that race probably a thousand times and I still don’t know the answer to that question. The one thing I am certain about is that if Dancing Brave had won there would have been a lot of questions asked internally, and there would have been some massive changes to the betting industry regarding antepost betting. How I felt when Shahrastani won is impossible to describe, one I still can’t put into words. Was it idiotic, sitting on that kind of liability? Absolutely. Was the thrill and elation of watching Dancing Brave get beaten the best ever? Absolutely not. Dancing Brave was a horse that changed gambling for ever, and when you talk about being on the right side of a

on the day of the event. Back in my day, antepost betting was eﬀectively how we marketed ourselves. You see firms now spending millions of pounds on ridiculous commercials, trying to be the most competitive firm on the high street. Things really have changed. Antepost prices were our shop window – that was our marketing. These were the prices that got us noticed by the public. The funny thing was, these were some of the very few times as a punter you could back something at a price. This was so important to punters. In 1986 there were probably two or three races that you could have a bet on in the morning when they were on TV; the rest would have to be 10 or 15 minutes before the race (on the show). Antepost was the only time where you, as a punter, could take a view on something, take a price, and have a significant bet on that selection. Don’t forget, too, that these markets were strong, with huge liquidity – not like those we see today, where just hundreds of pounds could move an antepost selection. It gave punters a real incentive to bet! ■ Mark Cancea is a former trading director of Ladbrokes.

Hope Solo is football’s bad girl. From battling with media and coaches to domestic assault and doping, the US goalkeeper has had a number of bans. Solo was suspended for six months and had her contract with the national team terminated for calling Sweden “a bunch of cowards”. Mario Balotelli’s Liverpool deal, it recently emerged, had a £1m bonus for not getting sent off three times in a season. The list of his antics is endless: throwing darts at youth players, setting off fireworks in his house, fraternising with mobsters, and bust-ups with coaches Roberto Mancini and Jose Mourinho, who labelled him “unmanageable”.

John Daly, brilliant one day and terrible the next, is a cult hero in golf thanks to his eating, drinking and smoking habits. The two-time major winner’s tendency to ignore course etiquette and his “go hard or go home” attitude earned him the nickname “Wild Thing”. His swing coach quit, saying: “The most important thing in [Daly’s] life is getting drunk.”

MOURNING GLORY Joe Hodgson looks at why retirement means ‘a kind of death’ to so many sporting legends

concept of ‘athletic identity’ is utilised by sports psychologists and can be an important core for coaches to establish in their charges: the more identity they have, the more focused they are in their pursuit of glory. Problems arise, however, when there is no longer glory to pursue – the athlete is then bereft of this identity and sees himself or herself as a brittle, empty shell. A further problem for top sports stars is engendered by an inability to find an outlet for the focus that they have honed for years as a professional. A condition known as tunnel vision syndrome can help propel an athlete to the upper echelons of their chosen discipline – one develops an intense capacity to focus on very specific things, such as training drills – but when retirement arrives it is not possible to apply this focus to anything in a normal day-to-day life.

ICTURE THE SCENE. You are wealthy beyond your wildest dreams and are idolised by millions. You are close friends with pop stars, movie stars, TV stations, and YouTube sensations. You have more Twitter followers than the Archbishop of Canterbury; and, better still, you can spend the next 10 years of your life sitting on a Caribbean beach drinking mojitos from a bucket, smoking gigantic cigars through a traﬃc cone, and eating multi-packs of Quavers as a light snack between main meals – which will mostly consist of deep-fried lobster with chips on toast in a basket. This all sounds like a perfectly acceptable state of aﬀairs if you’re a lazy old so-and-so like me. But then I am someone for whom the idea of a long afternoon watching football scores land on a screen like snowflakes elicits spasms of joy. Someone who can watch The Ashes 2005: A 3 Disc Box Set in one statuesque sitting. Someone who has developed a symbiotic relationship with an armchair that has left biology experts snapping their pencils in weary befuddlement. If, however, you’re a professional

sportsman – ie nothing at all like me – and have perhaps spent the past 15 years of your life scoring the goals, hitting the runs, and leathering the forehands that have punctuated my static afternoons, then it’s possible the beachside scene I have described above in lurid detail actually instils in you a feeling of untold terror. Because it absolutely reeks of retirement. If you think, by using the word ‘terror’ I am exaggerating for comic effect – something I usually attempt at least once per sentence – I am not. Retirement was recently described by a certain Andre Agassi as ‘a kind of death’. He’s far from alone: sports stars are often said to have two deaths, with the first being the end of their careers. David Lloyd recalls turning up at Old Trafford the season after retiring in 1983 before being asked to leave; such were the difficulties he faced in accepting life after Lancashire CC. Steve Redgrave requested a firing squad to prevent him re-entering a rowing boat after his body-wrecking pursuits at the Atlanta Olympics. But he was back, dodging the bullets, at Sydney 2000, and recently he revealed he almost had a crack at Athens 2004. Fortunately for Lloyd and Redgrave, they eventually sought solace by taking their avuncular personalities and locker-room anecdotes into the commentary booth. But what about other athletes?

SECONDLIVES Problems arise when there is no longer any glory to pursue – the athlete sees himself or herself as a brittle, empty shell.

Athletes for whom light banter peppered with occasional empirical insight simply isn’t an acceptable substitute for the elated roar of a crowd and the adulation of a nation? Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard has

spoken at length about his diﬃculties with life after sport, which no doubt led to his numerous ill-advised comebacks. He singles out the inability of a normal life to provide the thrill of being a world champion, of having one’s hand raised in glory. Going further, Jonny Wilkinson has spoken about how retirement for him wasn’t just about attempting to replace the thrill of popping a crowd with a few expertly crafted drop-goals, but was something more profound: it was about losing one’s whole identity. Athlete Cathy Freeman, who carried a nation’s hopes on her shoulders at the Sydney Olympics, has said much the same since her retirement. The

Arnold Palmer Golf, $700m Designed more than 200 golf courses and launched an eponymous drinks brand that produces 400m cans a year and $200m in revenue. Magic Johnson Basketball, $600m Introduced well-known brands to diverse neighbourhoods via Magic Johnson Enterprises. Also made $50m profit from a $10m investment in the LA Lakers. George Foreman Boxing, $300m Sold the naming rights for his grills in 1999 for $137m. Earns as much as 40 per cent of profit from each grill sold (he has sold more than 100 million units). Dave Whelan Football, $220m Bought a small supermarket chain after his playing career, then built up the UK’s largest sports retailer, JJB. Bought home-town club Wigan Athletic in 1995. Sold JJB for £190m in 2007. Mathieu Flamini Football, $10m Still playing (for Crystal Palace), but is also co-founder of GFBiochemicals, producer of levulinic acid, which offers a sustainable oil and petroleum substitute. The market is potentially worth £20bn.

The qualities of an incredibly tough and focused competitor do not fade away like a weekend suntan. And when these feelings are combined with existing sensations such as boredom, frustration, and a nebulous sense of emptiness, it is easy to see how serious mental difficulties can transpire. Much like the recent research and revelations regarding the long-term effect of concussions in sport, we are only now beginning to comprehend the far-reaching mental implications of retirement following a career in full-time sports. Very few professional athletes want to think about coming to the end of their careers while they are still active. Consequently, few prepare. But now that more top stars are coming forward to talk about their respective struggles, our knowledge and empathy in this nascent field can only be improved and further steps can be taken to ease the transition. There is a simple epithet often uttered by fans of Arsenal FC regarding their long-serving (and suffering) manager: Wenger knows. And while recent years have revealed that perhaps Arsène Wenger doesn’t know quite as much as he used to, maybe he does know all the above: namely, just how difficult and bewildering retirement can be on the back of a peak-filled career in high-level sport. At least, that’s the only reason I can think of to explain why he is so keen to endure yet another frustrating, flaccid and ultimately underwhelming season in charge at the Emirates. ■ Joe Hodgson is a writer who blogs at

www.fitzdares.com and tweets @fitzdares

Hunza

hunzag.com

IT’S A KIND A bold Brazilian has conquered Hong Kong on horseback.

‘A

ND THIS IS WHERE THE magic happens.” For long enough that phrase belonged to the hit MTV show Cribs, a cheesy but strangely compelling oﬀering in which assorted rappers and ballers allowed cameras into their not-so-humble abodes, before delivering the payoﬀ line as the door to a satin-sheeted bedroom was teased open. But nowadays the magic happens mainly in Hong Kong. And it happens twice a week, when most Brits are either pondering what to have for Wednesday lunch or rubbing sleep from their eyes

as Sunday morning dawns. Joao “Magic Man” Moreira is the smiling Brazilian face of a racing franchise that is gaining significant traction in the British betting market. However, on a busy barrier trial morning at Sha Tin, he’s just as keen to talk football. The deep brown eyes that watered slightly at the price he had to pay to secure a pitchside seat for the Champions League clash between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich light up at the memory of a balletic move from fellow Brazilian Marcelo. And the Manchester City fan present (yours truly) is delighted to hear

Horses that any reasonable judge would price up at 6/1 will routinely go off nearer 6/4 on the Hong Kong Tote if Moreira is booked. that Moreira feels wonderkid Gabriel Jesus “was the best bloody player in the country” before injury intervened in February. Moreira’s back-story will be familiar to some British fans, but a recap is essential to understand what has shaped the character of a

Joao “Magic Man” Moreira, the jockey

man who, in the words of local training legend John Moore, has “tipped Hong Kong racing upside down”. Born into grinding poverty in a shack in the southern Brazilian state of Parana, Moreira was the youngest of eight, born by accident after his mother’s sterilisation operation failed. A startlingly frank interview with Michael Cox of the South China Morning Post just before Royal Ascot in 2015 read like the prototype for a racing rags-toriches movie. Too hungry to sleep; unable to attend a friend’s funeral due to having no shoes; delinquent behaviour as gangs

beckoned; and squashing rats by torchlight as the wind whistled through holes in the wall. That’s a challenging Yankee by any standards, but Moreira took the skills he used on stolen ponies in the dead of night as a kid and honed them into two championships in Sao Paulo, which funded the purchase of a new house for his mother. Mum would still prefer to have her son there, but by now the young tearaway, fuelled by a conviction that the non-footballing Jesus was in his corner, was oﬀ and running. Things didn’t click in France or the UAE. But they certainly did with a move to Singapore in 2009.

OF MAGIC

who is dominating one of the toughest racing circuits on the planet, talks to Graham Cunningham share the front page of the South China Morning Post with a heavyweight story about the Chinese Premier’s stern warning over HK independence. So what sets Moreira apart? Maybe he isn’t that special. After all, he lies only seventh in the TRC global jockey rankings. The fact that those worthy ratings are based solely on group and graded contests is the sticking point here, but could any of a top six headed by Moore, and also including Hugh Bowman and Frankie Dettori, hope to match the level of dominance exerted by Moreira on a circuit where brutally competitive handicaps dominate? I very much doubt it. Horses that any reasonable judge would price up at 6/1 will routinely go oﬀ nearer 6/4 on the HK Tote if Moreira is booked.

Moreira raised the bar with record numbers in the Lion City – including a flawless eight from eight at Kranji in September 2013 – and he has scaled even giddier heights since moving to Hong Kong. True, there was more than a little local diﬃculty with the stewards in the early days, but Moreira has shredded the record book since. Douglas Whyte’s 2006 record of 114 winners was smashed when the Magic Man rattled oﬀ 145 in 2015. Last season’s new record of 168 looks certain to be bettered again this year, and Moreira went global with a historic eight-timer at Sha Tin in April which saw him

HE FACT THAT HIS low, crouched “hide-behind-thehorse” style is winning one in four races tells a tale of unprecedented dominance, and Richard Monahan, one of the key men responsible for pricing up the Jockey Challenge market, reports plans afoot to handicap Moreira in a bid to make the hugely popular local bet competitive again. The Jockey Challenge was over before the lunchtime plates were cleared on 5 March, and aspects of that eight-timer were strikingly similar to a feat achieved much closer to home back in 1996. True, there were a couple of steering jobs that most seasoned pros would have made look routine. However, Moreira was sublime in floating from a wide draw to the inside rail and out again aboard Cool And Neat for his fifth success. By the time commentator Brett Davis called Prawn Baba home with the perfect payoﬀ – “a wave of the wand, a puﬀ of smoke and the Magic Man pulls one out of the hat and makes it eight” – there was an air of something astonishing yet inevitable happening. Frankie Dettori tasted that feeling first-hand during his Magnificent Seven at Ascot and has no doubt that Moreira

deserves all the accolades his golden spell has garnered. “I haven’t had the pleasure of riding with Joao that often but his statistics are incredible,” says Dettori. “It’s very hard in Hong Kong, but he’s very good from the gates and always finds himself in the right positions. The numbers don’t lie. He’s ridden twice the winners of his nearest rival in Hong Kong. He’s ridden eight winners in a day more than once. Everything you see tells you he has to be an outstanding jockey.” Significantly, Dettori adds one caveat when asked whether Moreira would replicate his success in Europe. “He’d have to adapt if he came to Europe because it’s not all about sprinting here,” he adds. “We’ve got to go a mile and well beyond, so he would have to change his tactical awareness, but he’s proved himself in Dubai and Australia so I’m sure he would have no problem.” Moreira’s response when I ask him about Dettori gives a broad hint that his own stardom owes more than a little to studying a certain Italian from afar. “I’ve followed Frankie ever since I was an apprentice in Sao Paulo and he’s the most brilliant jockey I have ever seen,” he says. “Frankie is what I say is a ‘calculist’. By that I mean he knows how to time his run perfectly – not just once or twice,

Moreira on Prawn Baba

but almost all the time. His posture is amazing and he knows exactly how to socialise and deal with people, and that is very important for a jockey if he wants to make a career last.” Moreira’s career already includes a Shergar Cup winner for Godolphin and a desperate near miss at the 2015 Royal meeting when the 50/1 shot Medicean Man came within a short head of landing the King’s Stand Stakes. The appetite to return is keen if the right ride is oﬀered, but Moreira doesn’t hesitate when asked which big European race he’d most like to win. “The Epsom Derby is the one,” he tells me. “It seems something very far away for me, but I never thought I would end up riding big winners in Hong Kong and Australia, and to win at Epsom is certainly a dream of mine.” A quote like that should be music to the ears of Epsom’s PR team, but what Moreira says before getting the leg up on his first trial mount of the day is even more intriguing. “Hong Kong is a place I don’t belong to, but for the time being I’m very happy to be here,” he adds. “Things are going very well and I look on this place as very special. It has been very good to me, so I appreciate that and hopefully I can make good use of other options that are about to come up.”

A man who talks about being very happy to stay for the time being, before tantalising mentions of other options about to come up might just be considering those options very closely. Or maybe he is just being mischievous. Either way, for the time being Hong Kong remains the place where the magic happens. But what is magic if it isn’t about keeping the audience in suspense? ■ Graham Cunningham is a former

Channel 4 and Racing UK analyst, now based in Hong Kong.

CARDSHARPS Sir Gordon Richards Chepstow, 1933 Richards set a world record at Chepstow by winning 12 consecutive races, including all six on 4 October. Alec J Russell Bogside, 1957 The flying Scot rode all six winners in a day on the Ayrshire course. Pat Eddery Newmarket & Newcastle, 1992 Eddery rode three winners in Suffolk, then headed north to add four more. Frankie Dettori Ascot, 1996 Dettori won all seven races on the card at cumulative odds of 25,051/1. Richard Hughes Windsor, 2012 Hughes rode seven winners out of eight rides – the seven-timer paid out at odds of 10,168/1.

ORLEBARBROWN.COM

18 From form to formidability Dr Peter Collett reveals how facial clues might help you identify a champion

We’re all in the business of trying to spot winners – whether it’s football teams, start-up companies, stocks and shares, employees or a potential mate. For anyone betting on the result of sporting contests, the big challenge is to identify winners beforehand, to do so with sufficient accuracy and consistency, and ideally to employ a system that none of the other punters are using. In our attempts to identify likely winners we tend to focus our attention on characteristics of the competitors or the specific circumstances of the competition. Whether we’re considering boxers, athletes or horses, an individual’s previous form is usually assumed to offer a valuable guide to their future success. So is the individual’s raw potential – what they’ve inherited from their parents or acquired through training and development. When it comes to physical contests like boxing, karate or judo, there may be instances where these criteria don’t actually help us to separate the contestants, or the relevant information simply isn’t available. In these situations we’re often forced to rely on the evidence of our eyes or what we already know about the links between individuals’ characteristics and their potential for winning. In the animal world, the links between individual characteristics and winning potential are often very clear. It’s been found that individual animals with bigger and/or heavier bodies are more likely to win their fights, and that this applies across a wide range of species, from spiders and lizards to pigs and red deer. However, body size isn’t always a reliable predictor. With Magellanic penguins, for example, when fights between males occur before the eggs are laid, the bigger male is more likely to win, but when fights take place after the eggs are laid then it’s the male defending his mate and offspring

who’s more likely to be victorious. This shows how motivational factors, like a readiness to accept greater risk, can transform individuals who would otherwise have been losers into improbable winners. Form and experience are also important. Here it’s been repeatedly shown that individual animals that have won contests in the past are more likely to win them in the future. This could be due to superior physical weaponry – for example, longer horns in the case of the dung beetle or the number of points on a red deer’s antlers. It could be due to several other factors – such as hormonal changes brought about by a history of successful fights, increased belief in one’s fighting prowess, greater confidence, or the use of more threatening behaviour.

BRITISHBOXOFFICE HEAVYWEIGHT Anthony Joshua 4/7 vs Tyson Fury 11/8 draw 25/1

SUPER MIDDLEWEIGHT George Groves 5/4 vs James DeGale 4/6 draw 16/1

WELTERWEIGHT Kell Brook 5/6 vs Amir Khan 11/10 draw 20/1

In the animal world, most but not all fights between males are started by larger individuals, who usually end up as the winner. In a confrontation between two chameleons, however, the individual with the brighter side stripes is usually the one who initiates a fight, whereas the one with the brighter head that changes colour is more likely to be the victor. Although there’s a colossal evolutionary gap between chameleons and humans, one can’t help noticing that this is also what happens in sleazy downtown bars – where the guys who start the fights aren’t necessarily the ones who win them! In fact, several of the principles that operate in animal fights are also evident in physical contests between humans. As is the case with other creatures, the physical strength of human fighters plays a crucial role in separating winners from losers. Research by psychologists reveals that when ordinary people are asked to rate the strength of male fighters, they’re able to do so with remarkable accuracy – not only from photographs of the whole person but also from photographs of just the face. It isn’t terribly surprising to learn that people can infer fighters’ strength from pictures of their bodies, but the discovery that people are accurate when they’re shown just the fighters’ facial features suggests that crucial clues to fighting ability are also present in the face. This has now been confirmed by research which shows that when people are presented with paired photographs of the faces of real winners and losers who’ve taken part in mixed martial arts competitions, they’re able to identify the winners at levels way above chance. On further investigation, it turns out that the faces of winners are proportionately wider than those of losers (the jargon for this is ‘f WHR’ – facial width-to-height ratio). In addition, winners’ faces have broader

chins, more prominent eyebrow ridges and larger noses. All these features combine to form a supernormal version of the prototypical male face – which, through a process of sexual dimorphism, has evolved to look quite diﬀerent from the prototypical female face. Because of the evolutionary pressures on men to be able to deal with physical confrontations, these features are also evidence of the ability to withstand physical violence and win physical fights – what is nowadays referred to as “formidability”. For a long time it was widely assumed that fighting ability was essentially a matter of size, physical strength, reaction time and the like – in other words, the physical attributes required to punish one’s opponents. Recently, however, scientists have begun to advance the idea that the capacity to endure physical violence is just as important as the ability to mete it out. It’s well known that in physical fights between men, the vast majority of punches are aimed at the face, this being among the most vulnerable parts of the body. This would explain why “formidable” males tend to have a wide face, prominent chin and heavy brow ridges – features that are designed not only to signal hypermasculinity, but crucially to withstand any blows delivered to their head and face. So, the next time you’re about to watch a boxing match or a martial arts competition, why not take a moment to compare the facial features of the fighters. Who knows, you might form a completely diﬀerent opinion about who’s going to win! ■ Dr Peter Collett is a leading behavioural

psychologist and a former Oxford don who is widely recognised as a world expert on body language and communication.

Golovkin

Alvarez

Fury

Joshua

The trainer reveals how he identifies and develops champion boxers such as Anthony Joshua

PROFESSIONAL BOXER until he retired in 1994, Sean Murphy went on to coach at the celebrated Finchley Amateur Boxing Club in London. He has produced amateur champions up to Olympic level, many of whom have gone on to become world-rated pros. He is credited with introducing Anthony Joshua to the sport and honing his considerable raw talent. Sean was given a £60,000 personalised BMW before Joshua’s victory over Wladimir Klitschko in April, as repayment for oﬀering him a diﬀerent path from a life of petty crime, and seeing something truly special in him where no one else did.

SEAN ON HIS OWN BACKGROUND

“I lost my childhood through boxing – but not in a bad way, in a good way, because when you get to 16, 17, you might drink or smoke. All my mates were going out clubbing and partying. I was always in bed by ten o’clock, from the age of 16. As an adult I always made sure I was in bed at ten, because I wanted to be the best in what I was doing. So you’ve got to have that discipline. “There are a few coaches that have never boxed. They’re never going to understand what it’s like to go down in the trenches and have to fight their way out – not on ability, but courage. I don’t think you can train that; that’s got to be in you. I had a boy come in, train, and then he disappeared. I bumped into him in the street and I said, ‘You’re wasting your talent, you could be a really good kid, you need to come to the gym,’ and I got him back in and he became a national champion. Sometimes kids need a push, so you’ll become a father figure to them. It’s like being a social worker.”

ON SPOTTING A SPECIAL TALENT

“It’s the way they hold themselves, their confidence; a bit of cockiness as well is not a bad thing. It’s every little mannerism in what people do. When I have a

kid come in the gym for a little while, I like to see when he gets caught: what’s he going to be like when he’s been hit? Is he going to shy away? You’ve got to see what he’s got in the tank. “I might put a better boy in and say to the better boy, ‘Put it on him and let me see what he’s got,’ and the better boy will keep up pressure, and whether this kid can withstand that pressure for two minutes, three minutes, whatever it may be. The ones who are going to get anywhere, no matter how many times they get hit, they’re not going to give up, they keep going. That’s what you want in a boxer. No matter what’s thrown at them, they’ve got to keep their composure and stay calm the whole time, and then they’ll come out a winner.”

mobility, movement, hand-speed. I can look at a boxer and think, ‘They look really good, their movement’s nice,’ and I might never have trained that. “We work on their footwork to start with and then we get them throwing punches correctly – but above all you’ve got to have that heart. You’ve got to have that little bit of killer in you, or nastiness.”

ON TRAINING

“The running side of the sport is very important. It’s very important that a fighter does his roadwork, because that helps him with his stamina in the ring. When you’re working, you’re hitting a heavy bag, you’re not just touching it. You can’t just go through the motions, you’ve got to push and push and push and push until you’re ready to explode.”

ON THE MENTAL SIDE OF BOXING

“The main thing is determination – you’ve got to have a little bit of heart. You’ve got to be a thinker as well. You can’t just be a forward fighter, you’ve got to be able to box on your back foot, and that’s the diﬀerence, that ability to adapt. If you move away and he’s still coming at you, there’s going to come a time you’ve got to plant your feet and try and hurt your opponent to discourage him from coming at you, or he’s going to keep coming. “If I hit someone and I know I’ve hurt him, it’s having that instinct to jump on him and not let him oﬀ the hook. I’ve boxed and I’ve been winded in a fight, and I’ve had the instinct not to let the opponent know he’s winded me or show it, and just move away and survive and get over that.”

ON PHYSICAL GIFTS

“The art of boxing is hitting your opponent and then not getting hit yourself. I’ve had some kids who’ve just got that movement – they’ll throw punches and just move out of range, and then they move back in and hit. That’s an art in itself and all about balance and footwork. It’s about looking at everything: their

ON COPING WITH DEFEAT

You can’t just go through the motions, you’ve got to push and push and push and push until you’re ready to explode.

“A winner’s got to be confident. A lot of parents put pressure on their kids to win – I always say to my fighters, ‘Forget about winning and losing. You’ve just got to get in there and do the best you can.’ I say, ‘Above all, if you’re getting in the ring and you box the best you can box on that day and you get beat, then you’ve been beaten by a better man and you shake his hand,’ and that’s the sporting part of it. “No one likes getting beat. I was the worst one for getting beat, I used to hate it. You’ve got to learn from it. If you don’t, then you’re never going to progress to becoming a world champion or the top of your game. I’ve seen fighters never be the same after losing, and then you see some where it makes them a better fighter, and that’s what you want.”

ON PRIDE IN A JOB WELL DONE

“To start from a kid from the age of ten, bring him up and see him progress and become a champion – you can’t get a better feeling than that. You’ve taught him how to throw a jab, how to throw a right hand. They’re doing what you’re training them in the gym, in the ring, certain moves, and it’s just the best feeling in the world. “When you get a kid who goes through the ranks, becomes a national champion, you feel like you’ve achieved something with that boxer. I had one boy go on to GB and the Olympics, but in the summer he came back and asked me to work on a few things. So they’re always part of you, they’re always going to regard themselves as a Finchley boxer. “I might have a minibus full of kids, ten boxers, and I might have nine winners, then I’m not happy for the one who’s lost. It’s like I’ve lost myself. So, if I’ve got those ten boxers, and I get ten winners, I’ve won the lottery. You’ve taught them from nothing, not even able to hold their hands up, move their feet. Whether he wins or loses he’s gotten in the ring and he’s done what he can, hopefully he’s performed to the best of his ability – then I’ve achieved my goal, I’ve done what I set out to do.” ■

TALENTSPOTTER

A conversation in 5 Hertford Street was to have a profound impact. The observation was made that it is all very well being discreet, but you have to be known for being discreet. This had resonance. Whilst we love being a well-kept secret, we are conscious that in our dotage (Fitzdares is now 12 years old) we have perhaps become rather shy. It was time for us to put our shoulders back and raise our head above the parapet. Our philosophy remains absolutely the same: we are a private club, and we only wish to look after friends and family. Any new members are carefully vetted to ensure we all share values of sportsmanship and knowledge, enjoy meaningful personal relationships, and doing things with authenticity and a touch of style. Our mantra when we founded Fitzdares was that we never wanted to do things like everybody else. This started with a small promise that we would never send you a diary at Christmas! (Remember how every single firm seemed to send you a diary you neither asked for nor wanted?) So when we found ourselves brainstorming how to describe Fitzdares, we came up with FEW HAVE IT. We love talent, but more than that, we love those who spot the talent. The people who have that eye, who can see into the future. In music they call this A&R. In the early Nineties, U2 were the biggest band in the world, but they were not cool. Bono had a mullet, the Edge was going bald. Left on stage in Dublin at the end of an exhausting Rattle & Hum world tour, Bono talked of having to dream it all up again. That process of reinvention, of making what was to become Achtung Baby, nearly killed them. Brian Eno and Flood were key. But it was Nick Angel, head of A&R for Island Records, who finally gave the biggest band in the world the millennial credibility they lacked. He took them from stadiums into nightclubs, encouraging them to remix their tracks for the clubs. Paul Oakenfold was tasked with remixing Even Better Than The Real Thing. When he submitted his remix, Nick sent it back, telling him it wasn’t good enough: “Too deferential.” Try harder, he was told. We wanted to find the Nick Angels of sport, the very best talent spotters, the unsung heroes, and to tell their story. ‘Properly or not at all’ is another Fitzdares mantra: it is pinned to the walls of the office so that we never forget! So we agreed that to do this properly, credibly, we needed the real Nick Angel by our side. Where to find him? Steve Finan – Clay O’Shea – Nick Angel. Three degrees of separation. Will Conibear, Will Sowerby, Sarah Folkard and Stefano Arata made up the craic squad Think Tank marshalled by Harry Collins, our Head of Marketing, who has been with Fitzdares every step of the way for these 12 years. We had our team. Research and form are part of the day job – this was going to be fun. We picked apart a long list of amazing talent spotters, to understand what it was that made them want to take a chance on certain future stars. What was their secret? In the end, we we pared it down to five incredible people, all of whom Tubby Brother filmed sharing their priceless insights with you. With Nick involved we had to have good music, so he asked Dickon Hinchliffe to score our much-loved debut film, our baby! Dickon (the composer for Peaky Blinders) said yes, for which we are so grateful, thank you Dickon. And of course we are uniquely grateful to the real stars of the show for sharing their time and insights. You have brought great joy to the lives of sports lovers the world over. Talent is in good hands with these champions. When it comes to talent spotting, very FEW HAVE IT. These do. We shall be releasing the film this summer. Balthazar Fabricius, Founder FITZDARES, The Bookmakers.

Clockwise: Banstead Manor, where Rory’s mother grew up around horses; Sir Henry Cecil; Lady Fairfax (Annabel Morriss) aged five, with brother Jamie, three

Rory Fairfax reveals how his love of Frankel unearthed his own connections to Banstead Manor

TO THE MANOR DRAWN

S THE STALLS ON NEWMARKET’S Rowley Mile burst open for the start of the 2,000 Guineas, one horse, wearing the pink and green silks of Prince Khalid Abdullah, surged to the front. By the three-furlong marker, he was 15 lengths clear. The chasing pack began to resemble a haggard and battle-worn cavalry, charging their way to inevitable defeat. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most visually stunning performance on a UK racecourse for decades. Fast-forward 12 months and I find myself standing next to Sir Henry Cecil on the gallops at Warren Place. Ten paces to the left is Michael Bell and just behind waits my mother. First up is the legendary three-time Nassau Stakes winner Midday, followed by two time Champion Stakes winner Twice Over. More horses gallop past as I watch Sir Henry gaze intently at each of them. It is 6am and my feet are cold from the holes in my trainers hugging the damp Newmarket grass. There is an intensity to him that intimidates me. Wearing all black and clutching a cigarette, he cocks his head to one side and whispers something. Maybe he’s talking to himself, I think. Or perhaps he’s talking to the horses. Are they listening? I cling to that idea, not just because it adds mystique but also because it genuinely feels like he is. For context, it was only after Frankel’s 2,000 Guineas victory in 2011 that I discovered that my mother had grown up at Banstead Manor, now Juddmonte International HQ. When her father died she moved to Suﬀolk, but she held on to her many Newmarket connections. Her half-brother, my uncle, Hugo Morriss, kindly organised for me to meet Sir Henry once my interest in horse racing had been piqued, and I leapt at the opportunity. The thought that I was oblivious to all this until I was an adult seems remarkable at this point, given that I now spend most days watching the racing from Fitzdares’ Notting Hill oﬃces. You can take the family out of racing, but you can’t take racing out of the family. Or so to speak. My mum describes growing up at Banstead Manor as being “simply beautiful, waking to the hum of the birds singing by the horse chestnut trees”. As an artist, it is those colourful memories that live with her, rather than the more social nature of Newmarket. She casually tells me that there was a horse her grandfather, Henry Morriss, owned called Manna, which won the 1925 Derby “by the way”, said in a frustratingly casual way. In fact, as well as being a Derby-winning owner, it turns out Henry was somewhat of a pioneer. Roger Charlton once reminded mum that her grandfather was the first person to install central heating in any stables across the UK. I can imagine some of those horses were rather grateful

back in 1947, when there was not one day without snow between 22 January and 17 March! Back to the gallops, though, and after a short while I succumb to a sleepy trance. Horses whizz past, dancing their way through the morning in pairs, but it’s a hazy blur. Then, like a shot, one horse catches my attention and my eyes sharpen intently. There is no headgear, noseband, outfit or silks to identify him, but he’s distinctive enough. Muscular and fluid, with four ankle sleeves and a large white star on his nose, he’s gently wound up. Then, a sudden whoosh as he accelerates past his running partner with ease. Looking back, even then I was fully conscious of the fact that this was a moment I would remember for a very long time. As we turn back to our cars, I summon up the courage to ask Sir Henry one burning question: is Frankel really the greatest racehorse of all time? It may sound trivial, but it was something that mattered to me. Without Frankel I probably wouldn’t have any interest in horse racing, let alone know about any of my mum’s story. He was the torch that ignited my passion for racing. Now, everyone has a say on the matter, so let’s just have a quick look at the key stats. For a start, Frankel has the highest Timeform rating of all time at 147. For a modern comparison, Arrogate has just been given a rating of 141, having missed

the break in the Dubai World Cup and still won by 2½ lengths. As a draw and attraction, his impact is undeniable. Racecourse attendances increased across the board, especially at the big meetings. His popularity matched his greatness. Perhaps the most stunning statistic of all was when Frankel stepped up to 1m 2f for the Juddmonte International Stakes at York in 2012. Attendances had been around 19,000 in previous years, yet this number almost doubled in 2012 to 30,163. It was the Frankel Eﬀect. The markets became redundant as he was sent oﬀ as short as 1/20 on one occasion. Normally, for most of us, a horse’s currency lies in his victories. With Frankel, it was far more than that. People would watch just to be entertained, for the simple ‘wow factor’ that he could provide. His popularity was unparalleled.

VER THE COURSE OF HIS three-year racing career, he went unbeaten in all 14 of his races, including 10 Group 1s, with an average winning distance of 5.45 lengths. Note that the average for a horse running between 7f and 1 mile is just one length and you get a measure of just how dominant he was. On Champions Day in 2011, Frankel ran a sectional time of 10.99 secs from the three-furlong marker to the two, while his final furlong was clocked at 12.75 secs. Remarkably, both these times were quicker than any horse running in the Champion Sprint that day. This is a horse run exclusively over 1 mile and 1 mile 2f, but if you want to know how he would have fared over shorter distances, there’s your answer. Yes, he did not win a Derby or an Arc, nor did he take in a Breeder’s Cup. But you can’t very well hold his owners’ decisions against him (and who could blame them either, with a lucrative stud career lined up?). All he could do was outlcass all the opponents put up against him. Back in 2012, Sir Henry Cecil turned to me and responded to my question in a typically understated manner: “Well… you tell me.” Perhaps now I have an answer. It’s a pointless question. I wanted to be able to say I saw the greatest horse being trained by the greatest trainer. I still can, but not with pure, objective authority. I can manipulate all the data in the world to suit my argument, but that is missing the point. His greatness lies in the impact he had on those around him. For me, it was profound. That I can say for sure. It was a privilege to meet Sir Henry, and watch Frankel, to whom I will forever be grateful for opening my eyes to the sport we love. ■ Rory Fairfax is a broker at Fitzdares.

ASCOTPICNIC The perfect picnic should be the product of careful thought: a cacophony of flavours, colours, textures, with added naughty treats. It takes time to cook, bake and package a whole picnic yourself, so it may be more realistic to invite everyone to bring something and really pile it on. Here are three moreish recipes from Lucy Carr-Ellison & Jemima Jones of Tart

Spicy chilled avocado soup We first tried chilled avocado soup in New York on a hot summer’s day, sitting outside with a cold glass of white wine watching the world go by, a memory which we have been happy to savour. This is a full-flavoured summer soup – velvety smooth and fun with a punchy bright green colour, a wonderful weekend lunch. Avocado soups are richer than most soups, so smaller portions are usually enough. We recommend it with crab, but if you are serving without, try and add a little crunch with diced cucumber, red onion, mint and coriander. Serves 4-6 Soup ingredients 500g chicken stock/vegetable stock 4 spring onions, washed, top and tailed 1 garlic glove, peeled 2 inch peeled ginger 2 green chilies 1 tin coconut milk 1 cucumber peeled 1 avocado, stoned and peeled 4 large green tomatoes 2 tsp cumin 2 tsp coriander small bunch coriander small bunch mint squirt honey 2 limes juiced and zested sea salt – plenty

Crab 250 g crab 3 spring onion 1 lime and zest bunch of coriander and mint leaves, shredded salt and pepper Garnish ideas coriander leaves (micro herbs are great), sliced radish, sliced spring onion, sliced chili 1 Place all your ingredients into a blender and blitz until smooth. It is important to taste and season to your liking: add more lime for zing or maybe even more chilli (we personally add more). 2 Pour into a bowl and place in the fridge for at least a few hours. 3 In another bowl mix all your crab ingredients together. Keep chilled in a separate container. 4 Once the soup is chilled, serve with a dollop of your crab mixture and sprinkle over your garnish.

Sweet potato & chorizo croquettes

Herb and Fennel Scotch Eggs Scotch eggs are the ultimate picnic food. There’s something especially satisfying about unpacking a batch as you settle down to eat al fresco; not only do they stay intact in a way few other foods do, but they always get a good reception. The key to a really good Scotch egg is having a runny yolk, which can be difficult. Just be careful not to pop the egg when peeling it and wrapping it in the meat mixture. Cook a few extra just to be on the safe side. Makes 8 eggs Ingredients 8 x best quality, free range eggs 600g best quality minced pork, fresh from the butchers a handful of herbs – chives, parsley, tarragon and sage chopped 1 clove finely grated garlic 1 tsp English mustard 1 tsp fennel seeds pinch of freshly grated nutmeg salt and pepper 1 egg, whisked for coating plain flour for dusting panko bread crumbs vegetable / groundnut oil 1 First soft boil the eggs – add eggs to boiling water and cook for 5 mins then straight into cold water, peel and leave to the side. 2 Heat a pan over a medium heat and dry roast the fennel seeds – for about 2 mins until you can start to smell the aroma then take off heat and grind in a pestle and mortar. 3 In a bowl mix together the mince, herbs, garlic, mustard, ground fennel seeds and nutmeg and season and divide into 8 balls. 4 Place three bowls in front of you, put the whisked egg in the first, flour in the second and the breadcrumbs in the third. 5 Lay a piece of cling film on your work surface and dust with flour. Place one of the meat balls on the cling film and flour, then place a piece of cling film on top. Roll the meat till big enough to cover a whole egg then remove the cling film. 6 Place an egg in the middle of the rolled meat, wrap around the egg carefully using the clingfilm to help, remove and make sure egg is fully covered. Dip the egg first in the egg, then flour then bread crumbs. 7 Fill a large frying pan about a third full of oil, heat over medium-hot heat then add the eggs so they sizzle. Cook for about 5-7 mins, turning them so they are golden and crisp all over, then drain on kitchen towel. 8 Serve with homemade spicy ketchup.

A village cricket match, the races, or an end-of-year sports day: often these end being memorable more for the picnic than the sport.

This is a fun recipe that we created for ES Magazine, and was one of the first columns we wrote. And it has turned out to be one of the most popular recipes with people still making them, which is always very nice to hear. They have come up in conversation in the funniest of places – from the hairdresser’s to a shoe shop to a queue in the butcher’s. We’re very happy to hear they are such a hit. Makes 15-20 croquettes

Ingredients 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 3cm cubes 200g chorizo, into 1 cm cubes, fried till crisped in olive oil 200g feta, crumbled 2 eggs 4 spring onions, finely chopped 2 garlic, pressed fresh coriander, finely chopped 2 green chilies, finely chopped 1 tbsp ground cumin 1 tbsp ground coriander 2 tsp smoked paprika panko crumbs 1 Preheat your oven to 200C. 2 Boil the sweet potatoes in a pot for around 15-20 minutes, make sure they are cooked

through, then mashed, then set aside to cool. 3 In a large bowl add the sweet potato, feta, chorizo, spring onion, pressed garlic, 1 beaten egg and 2 tbsp of panko crumbs and spices. Place in the refrigerator until cold and stiff. 4 Make into ovals or rounds, place on to greaseproof paper trays, dip the croquettes into the beaten egg and then roll in the panko crumbs with added sea salt and pepper. 5 You can either shallow fry in olive oil, or bake them in the oven sprinkled with olive oil and seasoned, for around 5-10 mins. For extra crisp turn the grill on for a few minutes and take out when golden brown. Serve with a spiced lemony yoghurt dip.

Jemima and Lucy enjoy a picnic tart-london.com

24 Says BBC Radio 4’s Nick Robinson: “Being prepared to call it, to make a judgement – bold, brave, inspired or sometimes woefully wrong – is something I value, and not just in my trade but in many others too. So, here are my top ten calls reflecting my passions for politics and Manchester United...” Rehiring Steve Jobs Apple had sacked the “uncontrollable” Steve Jobs in 1985 but then realised it needed him back. He was rehired in 1997.

“It’s David… I mean Ed” Not that my political calls are always right. On live TV I took one look at David Miliband’s smile and Ed’s grimace and said the older brother had won the Labour leadership election, but…

Joining the Just-Missed-It club Groucho Marx said he wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have him in it, but this is a club you really would want to be in. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt I was one of those who just missed sinking with the Titanic, after a family member warned him that “so many things can go wrong on a maiden voyage”. His servant did make the voyage and drowned. Three years later, however, Alfred died when a German U-boat torpedoed the Lusitania.

“The conflict is over”

Way back in 1993, Prime Minister John Major was handed a note (thought to have been written by Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness) which told him: “The conflict is over but we need your advice on how to bring it to an end.”

Righteous Redhead Brian Redhead, who inspired my dream of presenting the Today programme, hit back when accused of pro-Labour bias by Nigel Lawson: “Do you think we should have a one-minute silence now in this interview, one for you to apologise for daring to suggest you know how I vote, and... in memory of monetarism?”

Wilson’s Davis dilemma Harold Wilson planned to give a ministerial job to a Labour MP called Davis, but the wrong Davis – who was useless – was shown into his office. He gave him the job anyway, telling his aides that a useless minister was easier to live with than a humiliated backbencher.

Bringing Ole off the bench Sir Alex Ferguson made many great calls. This was his greatest. It came at the Nou Camp on 26 May 1999. United were 1-0 down to Bayern Munich in the Champions League final with ten minutes left to play. Fergie sent on his super sub. Three minutes into extra time (and two minutes after fellow sub Teddy Sheringham had equalised), little Ole Gunnar Solskjær scored the winner and secured the treble.

Captain Jack Richards “They thought I’d lost my f***ing mind,” Jonny Depp says of his decision to play Jack Sparrow in the style of Keith Richards of the Stones. Five Pirates of the Caribbean movies and $3.7 billion later…

The break of Day Sir Robin Day became so frustrated with Margaret Thatcher ignoring his questions that he planned to ask her: “What is your answer to the question I have yet to ask you?” Wisely, he never did.

Corbyn’s Labour leadership bid Someone had to do it. It would take a lot of time. You were bound to lose. John McDonnell had done it; so too Diane Abbott. Come on, Jeremy. It’s your turn to run for leader. The rest, as they say, is…

26 Dr Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University London explains how music can help your fitness

Most exercisers and athletes will claim that music is an essential component of their daily workout regime. Even so, many will select music in a haphazard manner, without any consideration of how they might optimise their mindset. Applying scientific principles to music selection can bolster your exercise and sporting endeavours – there are three main ways in which music can positively influence performance:

1. PSYCHING UP AND PSYCHING DOWN

You can use music as a form of stimulant prior to a training session or even as a sedative to calm your nerves when you are feeling anxious about an upcoming sporting contest.

2. TAKING YOUR MIND OFF THE PAIN

Music listening has the tendency to narrow your attentional focus, and this will cause a reduction in perceptions of exertion – how hard you think you’re working. The music will shift your attention away from internal fatigue-related sensations.

3. KEEPING IN TIME WITH THE BEAT

movement, and its Eurobeat-inspired rhythm takes me back to continental holidays. High intensity 14. Money on My Mind 134bpm, Pop Sam Smith

This contemporary classic combats my fatigue as the going starts to get tough. Very high intensity

4. Fester Skank 107bpm, Hip-hop Lethal Bizzle feat. Diztortion

I am drawn to the bouncy rhythm and like how the lyrics mention my students’ favourite eatery – Nando’s! Low intensity 5. Adventure of a Lifetime 112bpm, Pop Coldplay

This track is characterised by an intrepid spirit that gives me a lift. Low intensity 6. Uptown Funk 115bpm, Funk Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars

This is an instantly likeable piece and is sure to get me fully energised. Low intensity

15. Runnin’ (Lose It All) 140bpm, Breakbeat Naughty Boy feat. Beyoncé & Aaron Benjamin

An anthemic piece with subtle variations in energy and a powerful female vocal to keep me in the zone. Very high intensity 16. Ex’s & Oh’s 140bpm, Pop rock Ellie King

This peppy song keeps my heart pumping at the business end of my workout. Very high intensity 17. Can’t Hold Us 144bpm, Hip hop Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton

Lyrics at a machine-gun pace, a rousing chorus and more ’tude than you could shake a stick at! Very high intensity

Music provides a rhythmic cue that can help to regulate your workout and make your movement patterns more energy-eﬃcient. This works best with continuous and rhythmic activities such as swimming, rowing and indoor cycling.

7. Cake by the Ocean 119bpm, Disco-funk DNCE

This hit oozes the feel-good factor, and the phat bassline and bright harmonies take me up a gear. Moderate intensity

This elevating track is imbued with lyrical aﬃrmations. Very high intensity

To tap the potential power of sound, I suggest that you think carefully about the specific form of activity that you will be engaged in and then mould a music programme around the specifics of your workout. Begin by assembling a broad selection of familiar tracks and then segue them into a personal playlist. My personal workout playlist (see below) oﬀers examples of motivational tracks suitable for diﬀerent components of an exercise/training session. Use this as a launch pad for seeking the “audio power” that lies within your own music library.

8. Girls Like 120bpm, Hip house Tinie Tempah feat. Zara Larsson

19. Waves (Robin Schulz Remix) 120bpm, R&B Mr Probz feat. Chris Brown & T.I.

1. Chained to the Rhythm 95bpm, Disco Katy Perry feat. Skip Marley

One of the catchiest refrains of 2017 gets me into the right frame of mind to train. Mental preparation 2. The Greatest 96bpm, Electropop Sia feat. Kendrick Lamar

A powerful lyric flushes out any lingering lethargy and the uplifting chorus reminds me of my sporting hero, Muhammad Ali. Warm-up 3. Work from Home 100bpm, EDM Fifth Harmony feat. Ty Dolla $ign

I often work out at home early doors and find the lyrics to be quite fitting. Warm-up

18. Faith (from the original motion picture ‘Sing’) 158bpm, Soul Stevie Wonder feat. Ariana Grande

This typifies the sound of London, performed by one of the city’s favourite sons. Moderate intensity

This mid-tempo remix has a calming harmonic structure and is ideal for a smooth transition into my cool-down phase. Cool-down

9. This Girl (Kungs Vs. Cookin’ on 3 Burners) 122bpm, Deep house Kungs & Cookin’ on 3 Burners

20. Slide 104bpm, R&B Calvin Harris feat. Frank Ocean & Migos

I find this so inspiring that it takes the ‘work’ out of ‘workout’. Moderate intensity

As my exertions come to an end, this soothes but holds suﬃcient energy to facilitate an active cooldown. Cool-down

10. Fireball 124bpm, Samba Pitbull feat. John Ryan

21. Thinking Out Loud 79bpm, Blue-eyed soul Ed Sheeran

A sparkling Latin number that distracts my mind from any fatigue. Moderate intensity 11. Stronger 125bpm, Funky house Clean Bandit

The defining feature here is the positive message in the lyrics: “I want to be strong for you”. High intensity 12. Give Me Your Love 125bpm, Dance Sigala feat. John Newman & Nile Rodgers

The underlying piano riﬀ is engaging and gives me a motivational shot in the arm. High intensity 13. Move Your Body 128bpm, Electropop Sia

This dance hit is replete with references to bodily

The mellow rhythms and Sheeran’s evocative vocals provide the perfect antidote to my hard workout. Cool-down 22. Someone Like You 68bpm, Soul Adele

In this therapeutic song, Adele gives a rich and enchanting performance. Post-workout recuperation 23. Breathe Me 60bpm, Pop Sia

Post-workout recuperation: Sia’s somnolent vocals gently caress and transport me to a tranquil place. Post-workout recuperation ■ Dr Costas Karageorghis’s latest book is entitled

‘Applying Music in Exercise and Sport’. Twitter: @SAVIBrunel

SUMMERREADS

Now that summer is officially here, it’s an excuse to indulge in a guilty pleasure: reading anything you want while on holiday. Here five of the Fitzdares Team suggest some books you might want to take to the beach

Men Without Women By Haruki Murakami I’ve just starting reading ‘Chasing the Scream’, Johann Hari’s harrowing New York Times bestseller on the war on drugs. Sharing his discoveries through true stories, he embarks on a 30,000mile journey – from the founder of the War on Drugs, who stalked and killed Billie Holiday, to a transgender crack dealer from Brooklyn. While it’s a remarkable book, it’s a bit too intense for a holiday read. You wouldn’t eat a chateaubriand as your first meal after a ten-day hunger strike; you’d opt for something a little more digestible. That’s why, while gorging myself silly with pasta and sipping fine Barolo in a villa in Puglia, I will be taking ‘Men without Women’, Haruki Murakami’s latest collection of short stories, about men who can’t live without the female form. Clive Harris, Senior Broker

Why the West Rules – for Now

The Alchemist

By Ian Morris My normal reading strategy revolves around taking my mother’s book club hand-me-downs, flying through them and then feeling I should read something more highbrow, which takes me months to finish. This book fits into the latter category, except it is on the whole a real page-turner. The crux is simple: how the past explains why the West was in place to profit from the Industrial Revolution and beyond. The difference is, Ian Morris takes us back 15,000 years to substantiate his answers. He then looks at the world now, and the power of China and India, to predict where the sphere of influence will go next. While not necessarily your easy reading, this is essentially a history of the world in digestible form. It provides a fascinating insight into varying cultures and eras. Freddie Pelly, Digital Product Manager

By Paulo Coelho A few months ago I found myself ‘trapped’ on a Caribbean island, faced with only two options: argue with my family or put my pale body on a sunbed with a book and pray it would all be OK. I jest – I always have factor 50 with me. Needless to say, I opted for the latter and picked up Paolo Coelho’s 1988 novel ‘The Alchemist’. A charming tale of a young, Andalusian shepherd pursuing his destiny through determination and adversity, this book sadly only kept me occupied for a day – which is perhaps a testament to how much I enjoyed it, but also a nod to the fact it was not a long read. Take this with you the next time you find yourself on a beach, and bring another one with you for when you finish it. You’re not short of options, as Coelho has managed to churn out 27 more books since ‘The Alchemist’. Rory Fairfax, Broker

I’m Travelling Alone By Samuel Bjork At the risk of stereotyping myself, I am usually partial to a trashy, rom-com, easy beach read when soaking up the rays and sipping on a Shirley T. However, since the dawning of the ‘Gone Girl’/’Girl on a Train’ era, pass me a thriller any day! Set in various Norwegian locations, ‘I’m Travelling Alone’ (Bjork’s 2013 debut novel) is a gripping tale which follows the discovery of a murder of a young girl, left only with a solitary clue. The plot follows the already turbulent lives of police investigators, Holger Munch and Mia Kruger, and the many subsequent twists and turns you can expect from this genre. I found it to be a real page-turner, perfect when confronted with altogether unexpected thunderstorms in the usually guaranteed-sunshine emirate of Abu Dhabi. Chloe Sanders, Membership Secretary

THE FITZDARES TIMES CROSSWORD ACROSS

1. Titled Newmarket trainer, Old Harrovian, won 3 Cambridgeshires (3, 4, 8) 8. Highest-ranked Asian football nation (4) 9. 2016/17 Roma manager (9) 10. Mario Balotelli’s brother, deceased and controversial Conservative MP (5) 11. British six-time Olympic champion (3) 12. Sold for peanuts, bought for £89 million (5) 13. Worn by both humans and horses (5) 14. Iconic sporting radio/TV presenter, not Tutu (5) 16. Laytown meeting (5) 18. Advice (5) 20. This object didn’t fit the ‘innocent’ US sportsman (5) 23. Champagne region, football team plays at the Stade Auguste Delaune (5) 25. An easy passage through the rounds, cricket term (3)

By William Boyd There aren’t many novels that draw me back for more than one reading, but the story of Logan Mountstuart I’ve revisited time and time again. The story (originally published in 2002) chronicles the remarkable journey of one man across the 20th century, navigating his way through the worlds of art, literature, war, espionage, aristocracy, and poverty while crossing paths with many familiar faces and names. It can be both hilarious and utterly devastating but never for a moment gets boring. That’s what makes it the perfect holiday read, and one that will be thrown in my bag (again) later this summer to be enjoyed under the olive trees in the beautiful town of Deia in northern Mallorca, hopefully with a jug or two of sangria and some seafood fresh off the boat. Nikhil S Smith, Broker

DOWN

2. Former Pakistani cricketer, now politician (5, 4)

3. In Euro 2004 Team of the Tournament, represented Portugal and Chelsea (7) 4. Marathon runner for Nike Breaking2 project (8)

5. Sporting events defined by teamwork (6) 6. A clean cricket shot (5) 7. Where Conor McGregor feels most at home (7)

15. Seventh point of a tennis game (9) 17. Two-year-old Ascot race, city destroyed by the Luftwaffe (8)

16 18

19. 1961 Derby winner at 66/1 (7) 22

21. A creative way of thinking and flexible way of moving (7) 22. A ropey mountain activity (6)

24. To make a horse jump sideways out of fear (5)

26. Evel Knievel and Red Bull love them (5)

27. A dressage manoeuvre (9) 28. Kevin and Amy, ex-jockeys (4) 29. Titled female Olympian, Athens 2004 (4, 5, 6)

Any Human Heart

For answers email rory@fitzdares.com