Low life
Eating out
Jeffrey Bernard
Well, the race itself was quite extra- ordinary. When the French favourite, Sagace, was beaten the crowd really erupted. They are not very good sports, the French, and they see racing through their pockets and not their eyes. Pat Eddery, who won on Rainbow Quest after lodging a perfectly justified objection, was pelted with all sorts of rubbish, like cigarette packets and lumps of old fruit. But the silly boy who rode Sagace, Eric Legrix, could have won anyway if he had just kept his horse straight. The horse won the race and the jockey lost it. The trainer of Sagace, Patrick Biancone, walked out of the ring in a fury, and his owner, Daniel Wildenstein, reported in the Times as having been restrained — in my opinion as restrained as a pressure cooker — said he couldn't make up his mind whether to appeal or not. He is a millionaire art dealer but not a very pretty picture. When I worked for Private Eye the Aga Khan was usually voted the 'Shit of the Year', but my vote always went to Wildenstein.
But apart from Victor Chandler's hospi- tality, we were also beautifully entertained by Lord Forte, his son Rocco and Lord Charles Spencer Churchill in their magnifi- cent suite next to the presidential box. Irma was almost drowned in Krug and I
had a couple of vodkas and rather childish- ly smoked a couple of Havana cigars simply because they were complimentary. The French women at Longchamps were partially stunning and partially very much over the top. Irma, who knows about fashion, priced a lot of dresses and cos- tumes for me and pointed out to me a few dresses that cost over a thousand pounds and some hair-dos that cost round about £150. The French racing men of the old school try to imitate the English in an odd way by wearing grey bowler hats, but they go to be seen more than they go to see a good horse like Sagace or Rainbow Quest.
There were three more cheers for the British since we won four races in all, and it was a wonderful slap in the eye for the French who have been consistently rude to me and my party ever since we arrived last Friday. If there had been Stewards in the War Office they would have lodged an objection after Waterloo.
But the nice part of the trip to Paris has been the company of my friends and Victor Chandler. We had a marvellous lunch on Monday in the Bistro de Paris in the Rue de Lille, where I kicked off with a pâté de foie gras salad, followed by fish in a flaky pastry. It was superb and I think I should attempt to persuade some editor to give me an 'Eating Out' column. But I love even the ordinary cheap French restaurants. I went out with my godson, a terrible spiv and hooligan, who does stage design rather successfully, and we had that old favourite of steak, chips, salad, brie and claret. Why can't we get that in England? It's all so easy to do properly and yet the English contrive to produce fat chips that are like lumps of wet cotton wool.
But I do urge you, even if you are not as keen on racing as I am, to give the Arc a try next year. The atmosphere is very electric and the day simply oozes style.
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