Friday 16 September 2016

A Star is Born

Once upon a time there was a racecourse manager. The racecourse that he ran was very small and had a tiny number of fixtures. But even so, he couldn’t manage it on his own - he needed a team to help dispatch all the tickets, to mend the track, hire the mobile toilets and so on and so forth.

So the racecourse manager hired some pixies. The chief ticket pixie was called Naomi and, because she was always nice to everyone, within a very short period of time she attracted a great number of friends and admirers. Chief among Naomi’s many admirers was Andy – whom she coincidentally started dating during the same week that she started working at the racecourse. The stars, they were aligned.

And so it came to pass, that instead of completing essential work ahead of Cartmel’s final race-meeting of the season in August, Naomi was absent on maternity leave. The other pixies in the office worked day and night - mainly responding to correspondence regarding Naomi's condition, but occasionally selling a few tickets too. There was no grumbling about the heavy workload - or at least not all the time - because everyone was excitedly waiting for the arrival of the new baby (or pixel – as babies are known in pixie land, on account of their small size).

The day of the final race-meeting arrived, but the baby did not; still the requests for baby news flooded the racecourse office. And then, during the week after racing, under the star-sign of Virgo, baby Sasha Seren Williams was born.

Sasha will understand the importance of her star sign, because Seren is the Welsh word for 'star' - and Virgos have a reputation for paying attention to small details like that. They are loyal, kind, analytical, hard-working and practical. They can also be a bit shy and overly critical of themselves and those closest to them - which shouldn't concern her mother too much because, for as long as Naomi has worked in the office, she's never been known to make a mistake - or at least no more than the rest of us. At least not many more; not really bad ones anyway.

Virgos are among the most careful signs of the zodiac; they are not particularly prone to gambling - so when Sasha grows up she might be disappointed to learn that I haven't bought her a cuddly toy, or one of those musical mobiles in the shape of a multi-coloured elephant. I've put a fiver each-way on this week's selection instead. Think of it as an early lesson in life.

And as for the selection - forgive me if you sense an element of déjà vu: I've tipped the Jim Goldie trained Jack Dexter for the Ayr Gold Cup in previous years without success. What can I say? I think he's well weighted and I'm convinced that Jim will win the race one day - it's written in the stars.

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