Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

The turf

Twelve to Follow

Robin Oakley

Wednesday, 7th November 2007

Enough of these two-year-old babies and equine whippets racing over the length of a few suburban lawns. Not a moment too soon it is time for hardier sorts and for the winter sport, for sturdy mud-stained limbs and exhaled breath hanging in dank November air.

First, though, some past business, and I fear that if I were reporting on Twelve to Follow Inc at an AGM there might be some rumblings from the floor about the chairman’s stewardship of the finances. Apologies. On the basis of a £10 level win stake the accounts show a loss of just under £100 on the fortunes of our Twelve on the Flat this year. Between them they ran on 45 occasions and were in the frame on 26 of those, a pretty decent record. Godolphin’s splendidly consistent miler Ramonti was the highlight, winning Europe’s three best mile races, all Group Ones, twice at 5–1 and once at 9–2. Barry Hills’s Spinning Lucy scored a couple of nice victories at the back end, one of them at 10–1. Cliché, Broomielaw and Colorado Rapid were winners, too. The snag was that the Twelve managed to finish second on no fewer than 11 occasions.

1 | 2 | 3 Next page