Don’t try to find me tomorrow. I won’t be there. Or here for that matter.

It’s the one time of the year my phone stays at home so don’t bother ringing.

I’m off to Glorious Goodwood for a day at the races with friends. We only meet up on the Sussex Downs at this time of year.

I love horse racing on the flat and and even better if it’s at sublime Goodwood at the end of July.

At around 3.30pm tomorrow you can if you want join us wherever you are in raising a glass of Pimms to Philip Robinson. We’ve been doing it for years.

Those of you still with me at this point might like to know who the hell this Mr Robinson is and why he is worth such salutations.

In the world of sport, on the Richter Scale of fame, he is a minor tremor in the Atlantic, not a tsunami to match the theatrics of Mr Mourinho and his ilk.

He is a man who hardly got a mention on the sports pages let alone on the front page, but in his own way said more about the power of sport to write the narrative of our lives than any number of over-hyped prima-donnas from the world of football or golf.

Mr Robinson was until recently a jockey. A flat race jockey with, if truth be told, a middling career with many more also-rans than winners to his name.

But Philip Robinson means a lot to me. Back in 1984 when I was a half-starved student he gave me one of the best nights of my callow life.

You see in 1984 he saddled one of the greatest little fillies ever seen in English racing. Her name was Pebbles and she won the 1,000 Guineas with breathtaking ease against bigger and stronger animals. And when she strode home with grace and style, her nostrils flared and ears pricked, she had the last of my monthly student grant on her back, too.

She was the last of my accumulator bet which, as Pebbles strode across the line, turned a modest punt into more than £300, a huge sum in those days.

In what seems now an unbelievably generous gesture I treated two friends to dinner at one of Cardiff's swankiest restaurants that night and toasted Pebbles and Philip Robinson into the wee small hours.

I'm not a huge gambler, but I love the drama and colour of flat racing, the beauty of the animals, bred purely to run.

Pebbles was magnificent. Type her name into YouTube.

Up will come the stunning victory she achieved in the Breeders Cup in America the following year against the best that country could throw at her.

I can't watch it without a lump forming in my throat. In 2005 when I found out she had died I shed a genuine tear. And, as time went by, I kept an eye out for Robinson. Truth was, though, he has had very few days to match that spring day at Newmarket in 1984.

But here's the rub. Until five years ago he was still trying. Almost 30 years later he was still the gnarled, impossibly tiny figure he was then, albeit with a plastic left hip after a nasty tumble. He's an unheralded sporting star. A world away from the swagger of the new Manchester United boss, but a symbol of the very essence of sport in a way Jose would not understand.

So on a Saturday not so long ago, before Robinson retired, my friends and I are at Goodwood. We are four races in. Friendship and Pimms has turned us from the gimlet-eyed gamblers we think we are into emotional amateurs.

We are in the space where The Man can't get us. Our eyes scan the card. Philip Robinson is on Amanda Perrett's horse in the next. She's a local trainer and Trouvare looks a decent bet. We owe it to Philip to keep the faith.

Two furlongs out Trouvare is struggling, the pacemaker Boston Blue is staying on. Robinson is making no headway.

Come on, Phil, I shout, as if lifelong friends. It looks like there'll be another crumpled slip to join the pile on the floor until, a furlong and a half out, our man gets something out of his ride. We shout louder. Trouvare is flying. He takes the race by a short head.

We embrace like the half-inebriated fools we are. We race around to the winners' enclosure to see Robinson dismount quickly, nod to the beaming owner, not a smile on his walnut face, and disappear into the darkness of the weigh-in room. Perfect. We wouldn't want our hero to be any other way.

So that’s why tomorrow we will raise a glass to Philip always on a racing card somewhere, probably on an outsider. But always worth an each-way bet.