‘Some of our players can hardly write their names,’ moaned one leading football manager. ‘But you should see them add up.’ With soaring energy prices and grocery bills going up, up and up, we are all getting better at maths. My monthly energy bill has just risen by more than I paid for my first car so I need to find a Twelve to Follow this summer that will have the bookmakers making a contribution to the difference. After his domination of the early Flat scene, the most logical option would be to slip on a blindfold, poise a pin over the list of Charlie Appleby’s Godolphin stable inmates and take the first dozen it pierces. But there are more fun ways.
Some urge combing through Sir Michael Stoute’s yard for unexposed four-year-olds or the few older handicappers he has retained in the hope they will be Group horses. This year that would put Bay Bridge and Hasty Sailor on your list. Surprisingly, since the death of Hamdan al Maktoum and his family’s trimming of the Shadwell Estate operation, Sir Michael no longer trains any of the Shadwell horses. But system backers will look to see which horses Shadwell has retained. That would already have given you winners like Al Aasy (6-4) and Alflaila (8-1).
Those in my Twelve have earned their places in different ways. Often I shy away from brilliant and popular trainers such as John and Thady Gosden in search of better prices but I am starting with their Oaks filly Emily Upjohn who Frankie Dettori says has the wow factor. ‘Not many horses take my breath away,’ he declared. But she did. Potentially classy, too, is Westover who won the bet365 Classic Trial in the hands of Rob Hornby for Ralph Beckett.
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