Sandown Preview: Poetry in slow motion

We'll do Twitter properly one week, but let's just say for now that I have exactly the same relationship with Twitter that I did with Bronwen Bew at school: act disinterested in public, as far as scoffing at the mere mention of the name, but privately harbour feelings of overwhelming attraction and obsession to the point of stalking for hours at a time of an evening. I wrote her a poem once, and even as a callow, shallow 14-y-o with a poor grasp of syntax and stanza, I'm pretty sure it was better than anything Alessandra Liverani has produced.

Unlike the beautiful Bronwen, Twitter will one day have to suffer me jumping aboard, and when I do I pray for more followers than Alessandra Liverani (@humourwithlps), for whom three is currently the magic number. You'd think with a name like Alessandra Liverani that she'd be good at the poetry, though I've lost a few quid using the same rationale backing Terence Fury in apprentice races, and the truth is that Liverani is way beyond a poor man's Digence; she's a destitute woman's Pam Ayers.

Here's an excerpt from Liverani's published classic Where Are My Glasses?, featured in the 'funny poems' section of her website - repeat, funny poems:

Where are my glasses, where did they go?
I've searched high, and I've searched low
I walked past a doorway, then crawled through a hole
Which led to a cupboard that only contained bowls
I've looked everywhere, under each and every bed
The only place I forgot was on top of my head.
Hmmmm....

Then there's her moving anti-smoking epic entitled The Great Leveller.

Checkout chicks, garbage collectors
Teachers, sailors, company directors
Artists, writers, shopkeepers too
In fact, the entire mixed up motley crew
When they are under the cigarette's power
They can barely go an hour
Before they all become trembling wrecks
They're all into it, up to their necks.

Wow. So that's The Great Leveller. I'd argue that the internet is a great leveller because on it you can just as easily find the works of Liverani as Robert Burns or Dylan Thomas. The archetypal great leveller is death, but from courts to beer and the London underground, not to mention love, Bronwen, there are many other great levellers in life.

According to the racing Gods, soft ground is a great leveller. Only it's not. If anything testing going is a greater divider, just a different type of imbalance from the class war, but unfair all the same, and anyway if the mud did what the theory said and bogged down the good ones for the benefit of the slower ones then why has the Cheltenham form stood up so well - Sizing Europe, Sir des Champs, Champagne Fever and Quevega amongst others - at Punchestown where the official ground descrption was water, turf in places.

It has chucked it down in Britain, too, meaning that, at Sandown on Saturday, even the Flat part of the mixed card will take place on jumping ground, and not regular jumping ground either, we're talking Chepstow in December sort of ground, which brings us to another Poet: only this time a talented one.

On a level playing field, it's fair to assume that Twice Over, Hunter's Light, Al Kazeem and maybe even the enigmatic Sri Putra would finish ahead of Poet in the Gordon Richards Stakes at 15:45, but on the great non-leveller of heavy ground I'm convinced Poet can beat them all. That's because when conditions are gruelling Poet turns into P.O.E.T. - Potent Overbearing Equine Terminator.

Last spring, over course and distance in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes, in the aftermath of a monsoon that dispirited and softened up most of the field, P.O.E.T. went into overdrive and ploughed ahead, caught only by Workforce (when Workforce was still any good), with 11 lengths back to the rest at the line. Part of the reason Workforce got the better of him was Betfair columnist Ryan Moore's persistence, and this time, for the first time, the all-action Moore rides the all-giving Poet, which looks a match made in heavy-ground heaven.

The subsequent race is the Classic Trial, and at last this season it's a classic trial that Aidan O'Brien is interested in. Presumably O'Brien, ever the formalist and perfectionist, thinks he's got both Guineas sewn up, hence his unusual neglect of last week's test-runs over here, but Derby preparations are a different matter and Sandown at 16:15 is just the first of the live auditions for Ballydoyle's Got Talent.

There's always a backstory to the Britain's Got Talent hopefuls, and it's no different for Ballydoyle's Got Talent:
Meet Imperial Monarch. The weight of expectation is on, as a number of his family made it in showbusiness. He's taking his first big step towards a prize won by both his Dad and Grandad (Slip Anchor), while his elder half-brother (The Great Gatsby) and uncle (Blue Stag) finished second, and his other uncle (Oscar) was runner-up in the French version. Imperial Monarch has been on stage only once before, earning rave reviews (and a Timeform large 'P') that day last September, but this is a bigger test coming to London for an audition.

Because the four runners are in their infancy, and because the ground is as it is, there are too many unknown variables to be confident about what's going to happen, certainly compared to the established field for the Gordon Richards, but you could do worse than throw a few quid at Imperial Monarch at 36.035/1 for the Derby, just in case he is a superstar chip off the old block. It certainly makes sense to play it that way rather than go big on him at a short price on Saturday.

However, if you only do two things this weekend, make sure it's this: 1) have a proper bet, win and place, on Poet in the Gordon Richards. 2) go and follow Alessandra Liverani on Twitter.

Why not make Liverani's day by following her on Twitter
Even though it's clear to see her poems couldn't be shunned.