Trainer Dan Skelton and his jockey brother Harry have 100 winners on the board already but for most of us the jumping season proper has only just begun. It wasn’t long, though, before I was reminded of one essential difference between the Flat and jumping codes: the sheer fun element of the winter game. In the Agetur novices’ hurdle at Newbury, the 40-year-old owner-rider David Maxwell looked like being beaten to the line on his French import Ecu De La Noverie when he was headed as the post loomed by the 13–8 favourite Mister Fisher, ridden by the teenage wunderkind James Bowen. Instead the determined amateur conjured one last thrust from his mount and regained the lead to win by a short head at 33–1. There was delight all round, not least from trainer Philip Hobbs’s wife Sarah who had invested £20 on Ecu’s chances. The beaming Maxwell, who had had to waste down to his lightest weight ever at 10st 7lb, declared: ‘I’m now going to eat the horse.’ As he passed trainer Alan King on the way to weigh, the elated Maxwell paused to advertise the fact that he was ‘an up-and-coming 5lb-claimer if you ever need my services’.
The nearest moment to that on the Flat this year was when an emotional Eve Johnson Houghton won her first Group One, the Queen Anne Stakes at Ascot, with Accidental Agent, bred by her mother and also at 33–1. Eve’s joy was, I hope, shared by some readers since Accidental Agent was among our Twelve to Follow. He played a significant part in the healthy profit delivered by the Twelve. Those who invested £10 to win every time on the 29 occasions they competed would have netted a healthy profit of £233. I had only one regret. Second to Accidental Agent that day was the grey Lord Glitters, also in the Twelve.
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