Pint to pint

Upon being asked by an interviewer why New Order had broken the habit of a lifetime and started playing encores on their recent comeback tour, Bernard Sumner replied that although there was definitely a good reason why they’d never played them in the past, he was at a complete loss to remember what it was. Consequently, the band had decided to play encores, and to hell with the consequences. I had a similar experience in Somerset last week.

Perched on a barstool in a country pub a stone’s throw from Taunton, I was urged to try the local brew, Addlestones’ Cloudy Cider. I was reluctant. Like New Order and their encores, I knew there was definitely a good reason why I steadfastly refuse to drink electric apple juice, but I was at a complete loss to remember what it was. Like New Order and their encores, I decided to lower a pint, and to hell with the consequences. Big mistake.

The cider itself was delicious. Cloudier and less fizzy than the kind of mass-produced flagon filth Irish children are weaned on, Addlestones’ is certainly the most delicious apple-based beverage this writer has ever tasted. Indeed, so agreeable and refreshing was its soothing caress on my jaded palate that I decided to follow-up my comeback pint with another. And another. And another. Then several for the road followed by an encore. Big mistake.

I awoke the next morning on the floor of my host’s living room with no recollection of having left the pub, blood seeping from a cut on my right elbow and an unsightly graze just above my right eye. My mouth was rat’s-arse rough, my stomach was doing a passable impression of a washing machine on its super-fast spin cycle and I was covered from head to toe in a film of cold sweat.

However, all this discomfort was nothing compared to the turmoil that was going on inside my head. Relentless throbbing was interrupted only by searing flashes of blinding pain, as if someone was poking red-hot knitting needles in my eyes while simultaneously hitting me on the head repeatedly with a hammer. I was buggered if I could remember getting home, but I was now painfully aware why it is that I steadfastly refuse to drink cider. It invariably gives me a mother and father of a hangover.

I was in the west country for the equine sporting extravaganza that is Newton Abbot races on a Wednesday afternoon. An Irish friend of mine was over and we’d travelled to visit his brother, a man who rides very large horses over very tall fences at very high speeds for a living. Being a jockey, he has to watch his weight carefully. In order to make room for a rare couple of pints with us, for example, he’d gone for an eight-mile cross-country run the previous evening wearing a polythene sack with holes cut out for his arms and head, and several sweatshirts. His ensemble was rounded off with a tracksuit and a big woolly hat while outside, the sun was splitting the rocks and it was about 25 degrees. Celsius.

Now he was standing over his house-guests, inconsiderately rousing us from unconsciousness so that we’d be ready in time for him to get to the course for a two hour sweat in the weighing room sauna before the first race. As he had retired early in order to be up in time to do whatever it is horse racing folk do every day at the crack of dawn, my friend and I were left to piece together the events of the previous evening.

It transpired that we had left the pub sometime after 3am (closing time in England is 11pm, with a discretionary 10 minutes drinking up time) and, at some point on the way home, I had stumbled off the road and fallen headfirst into a ditch. Hardly a surprise, but at least it explained the injuries.

Our sojourn in the English countryside got progressively worse before it got better. Having taken on board the advice of several experts, including champion jockey Tony McCoy, before waging war on the bookies, we found ourselves on the verge of penury before the start of the third race. Never mind, our host was riding 10/1 shot Rico in the novices’ chase and fancied his chances. (For those of you unfamiliar with steeple chasing, a novices’ chase is a race over bloody great fences for horses that are inexperienced jumpers.)

Having lumped on in the betting ring, we watched Rico set off as if the hounds of hell were after him. Around the course he went at a relentless clip, lickety-spit, pinging each and every obstacle like a gazelle. Having led from the front for over two miles, he had the opposition strung out like Monday’s washing and was home and hosed as long as he cleared the last two fences. I was so confident that victory was assured that as our plucky steed approached the second last, I was preoccupied by thoughts of where I’d find a wheelbarrow big enough to take away what was set to be my biggest ever collect on a racecourse.

Probably through fatigue, Rico missed his stride, clattered the top of the fence with his undercarriage and crumpled in a heap upon landing on the other side. The bastard.

Racecourse decorum dictates that I mention that both horse and rider were unhurt, although I’m embarrassed to confess that at the precise moment of impact I didn’t really give a monkey’s.

I was, however, left to marvel at the resilience of the human body. Well, at least those that aren’t mine. After the race, my pal’s brother was remarkably upbeat and healthy for a small, thin man who’d just lost several hundred pounds worth of prize-money and been catapulted from the saddle of a very big horse traveling at more than 30 miles-per-hour on rock-hard ground. The same animal had then landed on top of him, while several of its chums kicked him for good measure as they landed on the other side of the fence in a more orthodox fashion.

On the other hand, I had simply enjoyed a few quiet drinks in a country inn and looked and felt as if I’d been trampled by a herd of wallet-thieving elephants. There’s a moral there somewhere but, like New Order and their encores, I’m buggered if I know what it is.