I have a weakness for the versifier Ogden Nash and one of my favourites is his observation:
Shake and shake the ketchup bottle
First none will come and then a lot’ll.
It has been a bit like that this past year with my punting. Last year’s Twelve to Follow for the Flat didn’t lose us a fortune but nor did they make us one. Through the winter, though, the dozen over jumps did us proud. Back in April I totted up the figures and found we were showing a profit of £300 to a £10 level stake. I was being premature. Since then several of the selections have run again, considerably to our benefit. One sadness was that Reginaldinho, Venetia Williams’s handicapper who won twice for us, ran again at Newton Abbot. Alas, he stumbled two fences out and was pulled up, fatally injured. Otherwise it has been pretty well all good news.
Evan Williams sent Court Minstrel up to Ayr for the Scottish Champion Hurdle, which he won at 4–1. At Punchestown Sir des Champs and Jezki, both placed at the Cheltenham Festival, made amends. Sir des Champs followed his Cheltenham Gold Cup second by winning the Punchestown Gold Cup and Jezki won the Herald Champion Novice Hurdle in brilliant style, both scoring at 2–1. Emma Lavelle’s Claret Cloak took a handicap hurdle at Stratford in April at 11–4 even though it was still too soft to suit him. That left Our Father as the only one of the twelve who failed to win a race after my copy was delivered to The Spectator (weaselly small print at work there: Pendra did win after I tipped him, but before most readers would have seen that week’s Spectator).
The New One also ran again, finishing second to Zarkandar at Aintree, in a performance that had Raceform purring: ‘Little doubt now he is a serious candidate for the Champion Hurdle.’ The revised profit figures from our 43 runs to that £10 level stake comes out at a mouthwatering £425.
So how are we to match that on the Flat? Bookies offering 100–1 against such a happening would be realistic. But here goes.
I believe that the season will have an Italian flavour. Frankie Dettori, freed from the constraints of Godolphin and with a point to prove after the shame of his drug suspension, will be hungry for winners. The breakthrough jockey of the season so far is Andrea Atzeni, now riding plenty for Roger Varian. His increased confidence is showing. Trainer Marco Botti, whose stable seems to attract classier inmates every year, will also be worth following.
His filly Senafe, second to Sir Michael Stoute’s Pavlosky at York, should win over a mile or ten furlongs and he speaks well, too, of Lelaps.
I always look out for improving horses from Luca Cumani and one who could fall into that category is Semeen, who got up in the last strides at Newbury last Friday to win over ten furlongs after a 197-day break. Incidentally, as he demonstrated when riding Semeen’s brother Danadana to victory at Chester and on James Fanshawe’s Society Rock last week, Luca’s No. 1 jockey Kieren Fallon is still showing them all how to do it.
At an earlier Newbury meeting, I was impressed by the finishing speed shown over a mile by Henry Candy’s Cape Peron. Henry called him ‘an able little beast’ and half-regretted gelding him, but the excitable Cape Peron had spent more of his two-year-old career on two legs rather than four.
Jim and Fitri Hay have at least two potential Ebor candidates in No Heretic, the Newmarket winner trained by David Simcock, and Beyond Conceit, the big horse whom Andrew Balding trained for them to win at Epsom’s Derby Trial meeting. Both are on my list.
Eve Johnson Houghton has started the season in fine fettle and her Alutiq looks the sort to figure in one of Royal Ascot’s two-year-old contests. In the north few place horses as shrewdly as Tim Easterby and his Bacotheque caught my eye when finishing well over five furlongs under Graham Lee at the recent York meeting. He is probably better over six.
Charlie Hills has inherited father Barry’s instincts and he will soon start winning Classics, having come within half a length of taking the 1,000 Guineas with Just the Judge. She will surely win good races but we may get a better price by including in the list his One Word More, who ran well at Kempton in April. My only Classic recommendation is Ralph Beckett’s Secret Gesture: for me, her victory in the Oaks Trial at Lingfield was the most impressive of all the Classic trials.
Star of last year’s list was Roger Charlton’s Mince. She will win races again but this time I will go for his Captain Cat. Richard Fahey’s Baccarat scarcely gave us a run last year but he has won with him already this season in a dead heat so I will conclude by giving him another chance.
Comments