Advice should always be received cautiously. I have in mind the two hunters in the American woods. One fell to the ground, his eyes rolling in his head. His companion called the emergency services by cellphone: ‘I think my friend is dead. What do I do?’ The operator cautiously urged him, ‘Now, sir, let’s stay calm. Let’s first of all make sure your friend is dead.’ The line goes quiet. Then there is the sound of a shot before the caller comes back on the line to the operator, ‘OK. Now what?’
Do not cash all your premium bonds to invest on the dozen horses I am now advising for an interest through the winter. This is a snapshot of opinion at this stage, not a guarantee that all will necessarily maintain their enthusiasm for sluicing through the mud at Chepstow on a wet Friday all the way to April.
That said, the new season has already sparkled for any sticking with last year’s twelve. Diamond Harry (at a generous 9–2), Whiteoak, Crackaway Jack, Money Trix and Pettifour have all won. So here are a dozen more hopefuls.
Charlie Mann’s Rebel Rebellion finished third recently in an Ascot bumper. He should win one before he goes hurdling. Charlie also has a promising novice chaser in Sullumo, who jumps the big fences rather better than he did hurdles and won first time out at Uttoxeter.
Emma Lavelle, too, is building the quality of her stable season by season. She is excited by the four-year-old Court in Motion but from her team I will go for Prior’s Glen. On his Newbury debut last year they wondered if he would complete. Beaten only a neck then, he has strengthened up and clearly needed his first outing at Ascot. He should win a novice hurdle. So should Alan King’s Hong Kong Harry.
I wouldn’t follow him regularly but King’s Old Benny, who missed last season but previously won the Cheltenham Festival four-miler, could be one for the Grand National. My long-term ideas for that race include Nigel Twiston-Davies’s Irish Raptor, and Tricky Trickster, who is now with champion trainer Paul Nicholls, a man hungry to win his first National.
Timeform’s invaluable guide Chasers and Hurdlers 2008/09 (Portway Press, £70) notes that Tricky Trickster, who was unsold at £1,800 when offered as a foal, was then bought for £8,000 as a four-year-old, for £40,000 after winning a point-to-point and finally sold on for £320,000 a little over a year later. So much for recession. You may not always get a generous price on Paul’s horses but you have to have a Nicholls horse in the dozen: try his novice chaser Definity.
Owner Paul Green has moved Phidippides from Nicholls to Evan Williams, and the Presenting gelding could scarcely have looked better, winning his first hurdle race on 12 November.
Lucy Wadham’s hurdler El Dancer will win a decent prize if he gets a fast-run race and I must include a horse from the advancing stable of Martin Keighley. As a jockey he rode only nine winners but he has already trained 18 this season. His Wolf Moon looks the sort for the Coral Cup but I will go for Any Currency, a tough stayer who will make a grand chaser. You need improving horses. Two from Philip Hobbs in that category are Clova Island, who will start in handicap hurdles and then go chasing, and Quinz.
Finally, we must have a pair from Ireland. Willie Mullins could win races at a decent price with Lios A Choill, a novice hurdler who should make up into a chaser. The price has gone now on Noel Meade’s Go Native, a 25–1 winner of the Fighting Fifth Hurdle, so let us take instead his possibly underrated Muirhead.
And how about the summer Twelve? Between them they ran 33 times, producing six victories, seven seconds and five third places. Best of the wins was King’s Apostle’s 7–1 victory in the Prix Maurice de Gheest. Confront won three times and had he not gone down by just half a length to Aqlaam, subsequent winner of the Prix du Moulin, we would have been in profit. As it is we were down just on £100 to a £10 level win stake. Each-way backers might have had some consolation when Roses for the Lady took second place at 33–1 in the Irish Oaks.
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