pumpkin soup and a grizzly end

Black Jack Ketchum - the name that never was.

By Dave Ord

I'm not saying I'm easily bought but I'd like to place on record the fact the Ladbrokes World Hurdle is my new favourite race.

This has nothing to do with the fact I have just spent two days on a media trip to promote the race - which included a stay in the luxurious Lower Slaughter Manor Hotel. Perish the thought.

The fact my palatial room for the night had a four-poster bed, three baths, a shower, a plasma screen and complimentary fruit bowl have nothing to do with my choice of new favourite race.

Neither has the five-course dinner laid before us on Monday evening. It started with Pumpkin soup and a Quail's egg. Now I have scoured the online supermarkets and have yet to find this in a tin anywhere but I won't give in. It was rather pleasant.

Then we had smoked salmon and a seafood terrine. That was rather more problematic as I couldn't use the fish knife to great effect and wasn't sure if you ate the black wrapping around the terrine.

I turned to Will Hayler of the London Evening Standard for advice but he'd elected to sit out this course. I decided to leave the black wrapping alone. It may not have been the done thing.

The main course was venison - lovely it was too. So nice in fact we had some in the suet side dish too. Perhaps the chef had knocked a deer down on the way to work?

Still it was all good stuff - but not the main event. That was a morning trip to Jackdaws Castle.

I'm going to buy some sensible shoes as my loafers let the frost in and I was box walking as we saw horses enjoy a solarium and swim at what are incredible training facilities.

Star of the show was Black Jack Ketchum and I managed to get video interviews with Jonjo O'Neill and Tony McCoy - coming soon to the video player on this very website.

We also saw horses work up the hill and then - like the Grand Old Duke Of York - we marched right back down it where thankfully a bus was waiting for us. The asthma inhaler was clutched tight to my palm at the thought of following in Black Jack's hoofprints up the all-weather strip

I can pass on a strong word for Mountain who may make his hurdling debut at Cheltenham this weekend. Both trainer and jockey seem to be very taken by him.

But returning to Black Jack, my final conscious hours of Monday were spent reading a press release about the human being after whom the unbeaten champion staying hurdler is named. I'm afraid to say he doesn't sound all that pleasant.

Thomas Edward Ketchum was born on October 31 1863 and first ventured onto the wrong side of the law when involved in the killing of John N "Jap" Powers in December 1895.

Others fell victim to his gun too as he embarked on a life of robbery - but he was never actually called "Black Jack" Ketchum by his friends. That nickname belonged to one of his gang members Will Christian, who was killed in 1879.

It was at that point that someone mistakenly identified Tom Ketchum as "Black Jack" and the name stuck.

It's a good job. "Black Jack Christian" powering clear at Cheltenham doesn't have the same ring to it.

Anyway Thomas Edward Ketchum finally met his end at the hands of the law. He tried to hold up a train by himself (not physically) and was shot in the left arm by the conductor. He was found by a watering hole and was taken to hospital in Santa Fe where his arm was amputated.

In these days of lengthy NHS waiting lists that must go down as one of the most pointless surgeries on record for as soon as he was recovered he was executed on April 26 1901.

Even this didn't go well. The hangman who was chosen was very inexperienced and had failed to test the rope in the usual way by using a 200-pound sandbag.

So when Thomas fell through the trap door the rope was rigid and instead of hanging the prisoner, Black Jack Ketchum was decapitated.

The doctor then sewed the head back on the body before burial which goes down as the second most pointless piece of surgery I have read about in the last 24 hours.

So there you are. You can call this diary many things - and you do via email - but never say it isn't educational.