The turf: No loss, no gain

Those of us who occasionally advocate the hazarding of money on horses have to live with a little scepticism, too. In fact, those of us who live with Mrs Oakley (actually, it’s only me) have to live with a lot of it. If I were to give up punting, she believes, we could live on Meursault rather than Merlot. There she is wrong. At the price you pay for Meursault these days we only drink it when I have some mad money from a decent win.

But this summer Mrs Oakley was neither right nor wrong about my tipping. Our Twelve to Follow ran in 42 races between them, securing nine victories, three seconds and six third places. And the effect of putting £10 on the nose all round? Absolutely nil, nada, zilch. No loss, no gain. We came out pretty well dead even. Well, that is provided you assume, reasonably, that in the two races in which two of our selections (Triple Aspect and Total Gallery) clashed there would have been only one bet selected.