Many of you may have noticed a significant upgrade to the quality of reporting earlier in the month when Jason Craddock and Mark Pierrepont took over reporting duties while yours truly spent a couple of weeks on holiday in Cambodia/Vietnam.
They are fascinating countries and any preconceived concerns I had about both were blown out of the water. Amazing countries and wonderful people.
One subject that I was keen to learn more about was Vietnamese culinary preferences. Vietnam shares many cultural ties with China and are the world’s second biggest consumers of dog flesh.
Confirming many of those documentaries that you might have seen about China, you can walk into restaurants and select your living breathing meal of choice in the way that some Western diners might select their lobster from a fish tank.
At one coach stop – for the wash rooms, not the restaurant – our group walked past a collection of glass tanks containing three different types of fish, some eels, a selection of snakes and probably 200 frogs the size of your fist.
In the words of one guide, “if it runs or swims, we eat it”.
Another very bright young Vietnamese guide attempted to put it into some perspective.
‘For many generations, the military or the Government took the pigs, goats and chickens that belonged to the poor people who then had to eat anything they could find. Or they would starve to death. Yes, the people would eat all kinds of animals including dogs and cats.
‘Certainly my grandparents generation would have eaten both. My generation doesn’t and we know how the West feels about it. It is embarrassing for us. There is talk about introducing laws to make it illegal, but there are still parts of the country, particularly in the villages in the centre of the country, where it still goes on.
‘Dog meat is quite fatty and the villagers say it keeps them warm in the winter. It is also supposed to be good for the blood circulation and male sex drive.’
In fact, we saw dozens of pet dogs, but rather like visiting Ireland when I was a kid, very few seemed to live inside. Most slept outdoors, and took themselves for a walk along the streets. And every fifth house or so had statues of dogs on top of gate posts – there to ward off bad spirits.
(They are even more superstitious than the Irish. Traditionally, you are not supposed to say, ‘what a beautiful baby’, because it attracts the bad spirits to take the child. You are supposed to say ‘that is a particularly ugly baby’. That way the demons leave the child alone. Thanks mum – always ahead of the game.)
Fortunately, although a percentage of the 93 million Vietnamese love dogs in the way I love a Burgerking Double Whopper with Cheese, you are unlikely ever to find ex-racers in a tank next to the frogs. Gambling is illegal in the People’s Republic.
But that won’t stop tens of thousands heading over the Cambodian border every weekend to punt a few Vietnamese Dong on their sport of choice – cock-fighting.
What do you suppose happens to the losers?
I confess that I am looking forward to this year’s Irish track awards. With the big prizes well spread out, you would think that Irish Derby winner Lenson Bocko, with his 11th win in 13 races would be among the leading fancies.
Bocko was Graham Holland’s second winner of the event. Back in 2016, the Irish media swerved his Rural Hawaii to give the award to Paul Hennessy’s English Derby winner Jaytee Jet.
They wouldn’t dare would they?
When Henlow promoter Kevin Boothby decided to rename two young racers with the names of SIS hierarchy, there appeared great potential for a bit of needle.
Unfortunately, with Savana Bissett’s recent record (2 wins from 15 – currently A8) stacked up against Savana Brankley’s (three wins in his last eight races including P1 and an open), there seem only two possible ways that the two would finish within eight lengths of each other – handicap traps or a tow-rope.
Finally my thanks to Jason Steele for these photos of his remarkable models of the former West Ham (Custom House) track, which was bulldozed in 1972.
Jason is currently working on models of the old Clapton. I can think of many an old dog man for whom these models will bring back many happy memories.
