Robin Oakley

The turf | 11 May 2017

After several highly profitable years, we dipped last year, despite having many winners. I blame the miserable odds

issue 13 May 2017

The longer Donald Trump sits there the better Ronald Reagan looks, not least because he had a sense of humour. The President who told his aides that he should always be woken in an emergency, even if he was in a cabinet meeting at the time, once declared that he wasn’t worried about the budget deficit: ‘It is big enough to take care of itself.’

There were moments during the jumping season just ended when our Twelve to Follow had me worrying about a significant budget deficit. Sad to say, after several highly profitable years, our Twelve to Follow this winter left us, on a £10 win stake for every run, with an overall loss of £22 compared with the previous year’s profit of £101. It wasn’t that we lacked winners: we had 12 victories from 42 runs, a pretty decent strike rate, and in 29 of their 42 races our selections made the frame.

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