In extracts from the book he was compiling when he died, the raconteur and wit recalls tales of the turf

Uri Geller came to open a fête in my constituency, said he would not buy a raffle ticket because he always won and people didn’t like that. He was bullied into buying one ticket, one out of 2,500, and won. I showed him a sales catalogue, he chose a horse and we called her Spoonbender and owned her in partnership. Uri came up with some quite impressive reasons why she always ran so badly.