Twelve to Follow

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.

Tracey Collins’s Dandy Man must have been the unluckiest horse in training. Rarely getting the conditions he needs, a decent draw or the run of the race and competing always in the very top class, he was second to Tax Free in the Naas Sprint Stakes, second to the Australian Ace Miss Andretti in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot and second by a head to Benbaun in an epic duel for the Flying Five at the Curragh. We wuz robbed.