Then I remembered James Herriot making a dog that had consumed rat poison eat soapsuds to bring up the poison. So I drank half a pint of Fairy Liquid. That didn?t work either. A few bubbles came out of my nose and I went to bed clutching my distended stomach.
Dehydration is the easiest, temporary way to lose weight, but the loss of minerals makes one very weak. If any of the girls on Thursday have sweated too many pounds off in the sauna, their canter down to the six-furlong start will end in Chichester.
Hours in the sauna aren?t the only way to dehydrate. I used to go to bed wrapped in black bin liners. I lost at least two pounds a night and my girlfriend with that method. I sincerely hope that ?Radio One DJ? Sara Cox or ?top model? Edie Campbell have not had to resort to such measures.
The size of the saddle ? no bigger than the hymn sheet of a decent memorial service in some cases ? and the wafer thin boots will even make champion dressage rider Laura Bectolsheimer feel insecure.
While she will be fit from her day job and capable of cracking walnuts between her thighs ? dressage riders do a lot of squeezing ? she will not be familiar with having so little between her legs and her mount.
Fitness, however, or the lack of it, is the biggest problem facing most of this intrepid bunch. It doesn?t matter how many times they?ve set their alarm clocks before dawn, arrived sleepily in a trainer?s yard in time to admire someone else tacking their horse up and had a nice run up the gallops, they still won?t be race fit.
And to compound that, by the time they get on the horse in the paddock, they?ll have forgotten to breathe properly for the last hour.
But, for one second, forget the tight breeches, the designer silks an the ?Jilly Cooper-esque? tales of what went on in the training stables as these girls stretched every sinew to get into shape for next week.
As far as I?m concerned this race is about a major betting opportunity. Dido Harding, the CEO of TalkTalk, will be in a different class when the flag drops.
She is a consummate horse woman who was as feared in her time in the ladies? changing tents of West country point-to-points as Boadicea. She?ll have ridden this race a thousand times in her head already. And any thought of defeat will not have featured.
My advice to punters is to search the websites of off-shore bookmakers for the best price. Given that they don?t have to pay Levy or Corporation tax, they will be in a position to offer the best value on Ms Harding.
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