I WAS in Scotland last Friday to give an after-dinner speech and then conduct an auction at Hawick Rugby Club, not far from the offices of Goffs UK.

The evening was being held in aid of a couple of charities including fundraising for Hawick-born jockey Tyrone Williams who suffered a debilitating stroke recently.

Although the club’s current pride is Scottish international and possible Lion Stuart Hogg, Hawick’s most famous rugby son will always be the incomparable commentator Bill McLaren. He worked for the BBC from 1953 to 2002, becoming in 2001 the first non-international player to be inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame.

Rather like Sir Peter O’Sullevan in racing, the passing of time has done nothing to diminish McLaren’s staggering talent in command of a microphone.

I travelled over on the Aer Lingus Stobart flight to Newcastle which seemed to be almost exclusively transporting unrelated stag and hen parties. I can only imagine that it was a comparable environment that gave somebody the inspiration for Tinder, the online ‘dating’ site.

The perfect antidote to a small aeroplane full of rampant partygoers was the spectacular drive from Newcastle to Hawick, through vast expanses of unpopulated countryside.

I spent much of the time trying to understand why the sheep in this border country are so much better contained than the errant hoggets currently grazing in Ballinlough.

Their ability to escape would give Houdini a run for his money!

JARDINE

Between my speech and the auction there was a question and answer session with two Hawick natives, trainer Iain ‘Scobie’ Jardine and jockey Craig Nichol. Jardine trains in the Dumfries yard from which Len Lungo made such an impact a few years back and he had not only trained a winner that afternoon in Musselburgh, but has also had three more since.

In 2016, he trained the runner-up in both the Ebor Handicap at York and the November Handicap at Leopardstown. How unlucky to finding a Tony Martin runner too good for his on both occasions.

Craig Nichol was the leading conditional jockey last season in Britain and rides mainly for Nicky Richards and he too had a winner the following day at Bangor.

Having heard plenty about the handicapper recently, he alluded to a bias against northern horses, which he considered over-penalised for winning moderate races anywhere north of Doncaster. (Jardine was quick to point out that the problem was often how far the jockey let them win!).

Both men look worth following.

BRILLIANT EVENING

The audience was predominately male and the evening was brilliantly and enthusiastically compered by local flapping commentator Stevie Ellwood, who appears to be the Borders equivalent of Brendan McArdle.

Thankfully, they laughed at some of my jokes, none more so than one told to me at Christmas by our industry’s greatest storyteller (and Goffs most senior director) Stan Cosgrove. It features a man whose obsession with racing, studying form and the history of the sport was to the exclusion of all other interests.

One year this man attended the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with a couple of friends who, after dinner, managed to drag him along to an exotic Parisian club. Seated at a table, they were attended by a waitress who was very striking, very black and very naked, save for a white turban on her head. One of the friends asked the others, “Can you see what I can see?”

“I can indeed,’’ replied our man, “Lord Derby’s racing colours.”