Sir Alex Ferguson loves his horse racing - but he wasn't always such a fan of weeks like Cheltenham Festival.
The legendary Manchester United manager would ruthlessly drop his stars if they dared to attend the annual meet - just as he's currently doing in his retirement, backing three of his own horses this week. Plenty of footballers have also been spotted spruced up in Gloucestershire, yet former United defender Gary Pallister wasn't afforded that luxury during his playing days - at least not without consequences.
"My favourite memories of Fergie and horse racing is that if he found out you've been to Cheltenham Festival, he'd drop you," Pallister told Cheltenham Racing. "He wasn't into Cheltenham racing then. He didn't play golf and he didn't like horse racing. Now he loves his golf and his horse racing and owns horses.
"Back in the day, he wasn't okay with the lads going off for a day at the races, but that's all changed and he's obviously been involved for quite a while now with his good friends from Manchester and had some good success there."
Of course, Cheltenham Festival falls every March and comes right on the eve of the football run-in - or "squeaky bum time," as Ferguson coined it. Pallister also revealed that the legendary Bryan Robson, who Ferguson maintains is his greatest ever captain, was "the biggest racing nut" at the club, while Paul Ince also enjoyed a flutter.
"I always remember we had the players pool at United back in the early days," the ex-United centre-back added. He was the man because he knew a few of the jockeys and as I say he was England and United captain so he was going to get invited everywhere.
"Robbo, Incey was another one who liked a punt on the horses. I think they were the two main protagonists and they were always having a decent flutter on whatever the tipster got."
Now, of course, Ferguson is well into his horse racing and loves heading down to Cheltenham - now with his own skin in the game. Wednesday was day two which saw one of his three horses, Hermes Allen, take part in the opening race, going in as favourite at 5/2.
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"We're very excited about it, he's a really good horse," Ferguson declared before the 1:30pm. "Obviously we've got the Irish to beat, but we're confident." Unfortunately, Hermes Allen was comfortably beaten, despite heading into the final turn in second place.
On Thursday, Ferguson's Hitman will take part in the Ryanair Chase at 2:50pm and boasts odds of 25/1. Then on Friday, it's his main charge in action as Protektorat embarks on the iconic Gold Cup run at 3:30pm and is currently a 14/1 shot.
