This week I have been following Royal Ascot due to my dad’s fascination with horse racing, to be honest I’ve started getting into it too and am still using the money that I won from the free bet I received from Paddy Power when I first signed up – so I must be rather decent at it.

One thing I noticed from buying the newspaper every day is that there are two people working for The Daily Mirror who predict who they think will win the races, they are considered experts in their field, yet not once all week have they picked a horse who has finished within the top three places. How the hell do they still have jobs? Where else would you still be able to keep a job despite being crap at it or wrong on a regular basis? If a roofer got his estimates wrong he’d be doing time in prison!

Today one of the horses that I backed, Thomas Chippendale, sadly had a heart attack as he crossed the finishing line and died on the course. It was quite a weird feeling having that feeling off happiness that I had won a £100 bet, but tinged with sadness at seeing a horse die. I suppose the good thing to take from this is that he died immediately so he did not suffer.

I know there are a lot of people who believe horse racing should be banned, but as the announcer pointed out it is the human equivalent of going to gym and having a heart attack as you head for the showers, it is something that thankfully doesn’t happen very often in the sport. If you are going to be against horse racing then you should be against those ridiculous high fences they are forced to jump which frequently end in tragedy.

I left my dad to look through a garden catalogue, so he could get more ideas to junk to buy for the garden, while I went off to do some food shopping, thankfully I managed to carry all 12 bulging bags home without having a heart attack of my own, although my dad almost had one when he discovered I had forgotten his steak pies.