David O’Malley, who once offered to arm wrestle Matt Chapman live on Attheraces one day, is a Cheltenham Festival fanatic and likes to go to Prestbury Park every March. A native of Ballina in County Mayo in Ireland, David is a joint managing partner at Callan Tansey Solicitors and on his way home from Cheltenham last week he decided to write a fantastic poem titled ‘A Place Like No Other’. David is a member of Mensa and has a fantastic way with words as illustrated below.
Her eyes they shone like diamonds,
Drowning yet intoxicated in the submarine,
Ala sniffer dogs we’ve smelt this place before,
Yet always come back for more.
All bets placed, the walk down the hill,
Divert to paddock for gander,
Up to da village to sample the thrill,
The heady excitement of bubbles not yet burst,
The creamy guinea quenching the thirst.
Then it starts,
Heart fluttering, brain racing,
Shift back to the grandstands,
The true Colosseum.
Razor tension like pino’s moustache,
The bookies satchels bulging with cash.
A win embraced because you were right,
Yet in a blink of an eye another fight.
28 battles all ferocious,
Cue the wise old caps to the peaky precocious.
The nights for the spoils, Bar 131,
The relief at surviving trumping the fun.
Then it’s all over, some say never again,
yet deep down we know, it’s a bientôt my dear friend.
David is a great judge of a horse and messaged me weeks before the Festival started to tell me Iroko was his NAP of the week. And how right he was! Below are David’s three tips for the 2024 Cheltenham Festival.
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