Ones to watch

Back on political duty with CNN in election week, I came across a dead rat in Downing Street. It had to be an omen, but had the rodent been leaving or arriving when he met his fate, presumably in the jaws of the lean-looking fox who loped across the No. 10 doorstep shortly afterwards? Perhaps my furry ex-friend, too, had been misled by the polls but then we all have to make do with the best information we have available, as I did with our list of winter jumpers. After that heady summer of 2014, when our Twelve produced a profit of £171, I feared a setback and so there has been, but not on the Lib Dem scale. A tenner on the winter twelve every time they ran (choosing just one when two of our selections clashed) would have seen a profit of £19. Not enough, I concede, for a jolly dinner at Le Caprice, but sometimes one is more in the mood anyway for a curry and a large Cobra.

Seven of the twelve won, the star being Cole Harden, trained by Warren Greatrex and ridden by Gavin Sheehan, the trainer and jockey I urged you to watch. Cole Harden won Cheltenham’s World Hurdle at a tasty 14–1 while Sean Bowen, the other young talent I urged you to follow, won the conditional jockeys title at only 17. Nick Williams’s Aubusson took a big Haydock handicap at 9–1, and his Tea For Two ran away with the Lanzarote Hurdle at Kempton at 9–2. Very Wood, our Irish hope, had good days and bad ones, but he did score at 13–2. Mick Channon’s Knock House, after a promising fifth at Cheltenham, then coasted in next time by 30 lengths.