Thin & Crispy: I also retired for the first time in 1986, in my case after having a £1,000 to £80 West Tip to win the National.

Was sharing a house in Slough with a couple of girls who, like me, were working in an office in Gerrards Cross doing technical translations. I was dating a third girl who was also working there, but who was living with her parents and was extremely unhappy with my domestic arrangements.

So I chucked in the job and used the grand to go racing every day, promising that I'd soon win enough to get a gaff of my own.

I lasted three months, which looking back was an extraordinary achievement considering I had so little behind me and there was still a 4% on-course tax in those days.

It all ended one hot afternoon at Devon & Exeter when I went for a big punt on something in a novices chase. It got beaten by an unraced nag who made all despite being soaked in sweat and taking half a dozen goes before allowing a saddle on its back, called Mr Frisk.

I tried to get it back on a dog called Aboushabun in the last to no avail. I remember overhearing the late Dodger McCartney giving a mournful post mortem on the Aboushabun debacle afterwards, then announcing to some shifty characters that he'd see them at Wincanton the next day. I wouldn't though. It was a long train journey back to Slough and a search for employment, which ended in me renting a truly desperate flat in Merton Park, SW London.

So it was back to office work, this time medical translations and dreaming of retiring again and spending afternoons in the fresh air like Dodger et al.

But that will have to wait until the What Were You Doing in 1989? thread.

SlippyBlue    14 Aug 14 20:52 
I spent the Summer of '86 in San Antonio, Ibiza doing mad stuff.

i was in san antonio june/july 86

Chasing women and boozing.

I was just getting ready to start secondary school

Getting on with it.........

Left the Police and went to Ireland to breed, school, train and race greyhounds.

sounds a mad thing to do but interesting

1986 . saw dawn run win the gold cup and dancing brave win the arc . apart from those two days can't remember anything else at all.

@Emden, not really; I'd had some success on the flapping tracks of the west country (my superiors did not like this aspect of my use of my free time; apparantly I was mixing with criminals)and property was cheap in Ireland then so I thought I'd give the game a go full time. I was lucky, had some excellent dogs, most exported to the U.K.

I was 17 had just got back from a holiday in Salou, I had been given a full time job after 9 months on a YTS, was prepareing for my first visit to York races. There were some great horses in 86. That year is certainly in the top 10 of my life.

sixtwosix never told him