Ashforth's Alternative View: The golden oldies who keep coming back for more

Racing fans love the elderly. Take Mick Easterby, 87 years old and still training, or Paddy The Oscar, 16 years old and still racing.

Easterby won’t be on display at Chepstow on Thursday but Paddy The Oscar will (4.00). Easterby has a better command of the Dictionary of Slang but Paddy The Oscar is better at jumping fences.

After an undistinguished point-to-point career in Ireland, in 2012 Paddy The Oscar won a chase at Thurles. By then he was a nine-year-old and Michelle Harris, the mother of new trainer Grace Harris, bought him for just £600.

They discovered that Paddy The Oscar was like Cheddar cheese, best when mature.

He waited until he was 12, in 2015, before irritating most punters by winning at Lingfield at 33-1. That was on heavy ground, conditions that slow the show-offs down and bring Paddy The Oscar’s plodding abilities into play.

Since then, he has won four more chases, three of them at Chepstow, most recently in February 2018, aged 15.

On the dubious basis that “honesty is the best policy,” I confess that I don’t think he has any chance of winning on Thursday although it’s amazing how often I’ve held the same view about a lot of other horses, layed them accordingly, and watched, horrified, as they’ve romped in.

Luckily, Betfair didn’t exist in 1980, when the much adored Sonny Somers won two three mile chases, at Southwell and Lingfield, at the age of 18.

Trained by Fred Winter, Sonny Somers was a good horse, winning 26 races and finishing runner-up to The Laird in the Cathcart Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 1971.

Sonny Somers didn’t run as a 19-year-old, possibly because he had reached the legal age for drinking alcohol and decided to do that, instead.

Mutoondresdashorse has another 13 years to go before being legally entitled to prop up a bar, which may suit Nigel Hawke’s five-year-old better than running round in circles, which he isn’t very good at.

Once owned by the intriguingly named 9.36 from Paddington, possibly after a train to Newbury, Mutoondresdashorse triumphed in a maiden race there in 2017 but has since been disappointing, most recently in point-to-points.

Now Mutoondresdashorse, at the limit of the 18 character limit for racehorse names, faces Pc Dixon at Sedgefield (3.10) in a novices’ chase. If Pc Dixon follows after his namesake, Police Constable George Dixon, the star of Dixon of Dock Green, there’s little danger of him catching Mutoondresdashorse, slow though the latter is.

When Dixon of Dock Green first appeared on the BBC in 1955, Jack Warner (alias Dixon) was already 60. By the time the programme finally ended, in 1976, Warner was 80. As PC Dixon often remarked, “It’s a funny old world.” Exactly how old, scientists aren’t quite sure.

But I digress. I expect you want a recommendation. Sadly, I can’t find one fit for you on Thursday but I recommend watching Fleabag on BBC One on Monday at 10.35pm. It’s brilliant.

Racing TV – the home of British and Irish racing. Click here to join now.