In the great Keith Waterhouse play, Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, the eponymous hero anticipates a long cold winter and recalls what happened the last time January snow saw the cancellation of horse racing. He tells the story of a man called Casper. Casper once worked in an embassy but was fired for spending too much time in the betting shop, “not exactly a career diplomat but what’s a career when there’s racing at Doncaster?” His marriage collapsed when he told his wife, “in a moment of intoxication and frankness”, that when it came to a tussle between his wife and…

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