Mrs Oakley not being a turfista, she rarely joins me on a racecourse expedition. But before we had a dog there used to be one exception. When I was headed for Stratford-upon-Avon we would make a weekend of it. Mrs Oakley would take in a matinee at the Royal Shakespeare Company, I would go racing and we would regroup for dinner. If I had enjoyed a successful day we would upgrade the dinner and the bottle which accompanied it. Had she been with me last Saturday it would have been a very good bottle.

Cheltenham it isn’t, but the Stratford track, not far from Anne Hathaway’s cottage, is what the bard might have called a comely little wench of a racecourse. Despite threatening weather and major roadworks nearby, a decent crowd who felt like sturdy regulars had a cracking day’s sport: the first three races were won by a head, one length and half a length. The burgers and cheesy chips were passable, the course commentary was smooth and informative, and raceday presenter Robert Bellamy moved things along cheerily. I remembered him from his days riding for David Nicholson and asked what had been his most memorable success. ‘Probably winning the Norwegian Grand National,’ he said – although there were also memories of an important hurdle success at Haydock on a horse which had given Richard Dunwoody a broken neck on its previous run: ‘I wasn’t looking forward to that one!’

For obvious reasons I spend much of my racing time at the larger tracks with better-known horses running from mega-horsepower yards. But courses like Stratford are vital, giving opportunities that day to smaller stables in places such as Much Wenlock, Westbury-on-Severn, Market Drayton and Strensham. Smaller courses don’t find it as easy to attract race sponsors and what was noticeable about the Stratford card was that five of the six races were run in the names of birthday celebrations such as the Laurie Cole Big Birthday Chase, the Northern Bert’s 70th Birthday Selling Hurdle and two commemorations for one family – Alan and Hilda Peak’s family and friends sponsoring both a handicap chase and the final bumper. Stratford’s Wendy Rollason, who can be up to midnight answering emails to make sure the details are right, explained: ‘Sponsorship isn’t as expensive as people think. They get a box for family and friends and a picture in the racecard while we make sure the course photographer takes plenty more. £500 doesn’t meet all our costs but at least it pays for the trophy and the Best Turned Out awards and everybody’s happy.’

It was a happy day for me too. A £3,800 first prize is peanuts for the likes of owner J.P. McManus and trainer Nicky Henderson so I was surprised to see Nicky in attendance for the first race in which he was running J.P.’s Iberico Lord, a French-bred who’d had a wind operation since his last run and was dropping in class. His chances had to be better than the 10-1 on offer (perhaps Paul Nicholls tipping his Beau Balko on a bookies’ website had pushed it out) and my investment paid off when Aidan Coleman drove him past Beau Balko in the last ten strides to win. ‘Did the wind-op make the difference?’ I asked Nicky afterwards. ‘You’d have to say so,’ he said, adding in the way which makes his post-race debriefs so fascinating: ‘He’s not as quick a horse as he thinks he is. He tends to rush around a bit at home so having settled and finished like that will have done him the world of good.’

So far so good. Then there was another J.P. McManus horse in the next, this time trained by Jonjo O’Neill. With only five runners left on the heavy going, I could not believe it when Joly Maker’s odds drifted from around 12-1 to 25-1. Maybe it was because J.P.’s retained rider Aidan Coleman hadn’t stayed to ride that one, and because some suggested he wasn’t well enough handicapped. But if anyone knows how to get a horse handicapped it is Jonjo and the horse had won over course and distance the previous summer. I had no worries about him being ridden by the less well-known conditional Max Kendrick whom I had seen ride decent races for the likes of Fergal O’Brien and Ben Case.

At those odds I had to invest some of my winnings and I couldn’t help getting pretty vocal as young Max got a better jump at the last than the leader Chanceux and drove past him to win by a length. Jonjo declared with a smile: ‘I was amazed.’ There was, though, that typical little twinkle in his eye which added, ‘but not all that amazed’. He really isn’t a man you’d choose to play poker with.

I too should ‘know when to hold ‘em’. In the third I used some of my winnings to back unplaced co-favourite Weebill, trained by the currently unstoppable Olly Murphy. The winner? Hokelami, also trained by O. Murphy. I just hadn’t looked far enough down the racecard.