Verry Elleegant scooped the Melbourne Cup earlier this morning. And I am afraid that my own selections were out with the washing. This is possibly not entirely surprising. After all, it is a damn difficult race to win. It is merely that I had come to regard it as harvest home time. I guess that I have made £750,000 over the last ten years on it and that that sort of haul tends to cause presumption. The only fly in the ointment is that my agent in Australia has misappropriated circa £100,000 of my money and declared (I am not joking) that this is only fair since I have done so well. Luckily, the UK-based SIS have just taken a stake in the agent’s company and should stop this nonsense.
This year’s TV presentation team featured Michelle Payne who rode the winner about six years ago. She is a direct-speaking sort of girl since as she came back to the winner’s enclosure she advised a worldwide audience that those men who had thitherto declared that a woman could not ride the winner can now go and f*** themselves. Sheilas indeed speak directly.
The prize money is a healthy £2,500,000 for coming first, pays down to twelfth place and emphasises that British racing is dissolving itself through its failure to understand the show business in hand.
*****
Back at the coalface, Beximco Pharma (BXP) today report their figures to 30th June 2021. Given the interruptions caused by Covid-19 they are pretty good and the dividend has been increased to 3.5p. Further the shares in Dhaka stand at 194p and the London price of 98p offer is quite simply wrong. Family Cawkwell has been creaming along for well over ten years now and it really has paid off. I cannot think of any reason to doubt that this will continue.