Talking to a shipboard audience last week about the perils of journalism, I warned that the biggest danger of our trade was making assumptions. I had in mind my favourite story from CNN days of the cameraman who dashed to the local airfield where he had been told a light plane awaited him to take some aerial shots of raging forest fires. As he parked, a plane was revving up outside a hangar. He hurled on his kit, jumped aboard and shouted to the pilot, ‘Let’s go.’ Somewhat unsteadily they rumbled out to the runway and took off. When his passenger ordered, ‘Now make some low passes over that hillside,’ the pilot inquired, ‘Why?’ ‘Because I’ve got to get some close-ups of the fires back to CNN fast,’ said our hero. There was a moment of silence before the man with the joystick in his hands stuttered, ‘So I guess you’re not my instructor.’
In the last Turf column, despatched as I headed abroad, I too had made some assumptions. In naming my three hopes for this year’s Grand National as Prince de Beauchene, Cappa Bleu and Wyck Hill I did warn that connections weren’t at that stage certain whether the last-named would have recovered sufficiently from injury to run. He didn’t. But nor alas did Prince De Beauchene participate. No sooner was I airbound for Singapore than the second favourite injured his pelvis and had to be withdrawn. It was the second year running that Willie Mullins’s charge had had to be pulled out when heavily backed and for the second year running I lost my money on him without a run. Lightning, I had assumed, would not strike twice, but it did. Thank heaven, then, that we got a great run from my third hope and only runner, Evan Williams’s Cappa Bleu, who finished better than anything in coming second to the 66–1 outsider Auroras Encore. Evan has now achieved the remarkable feat of having a horse placed in the last five Grand Nationals. He really deserves to win it.
What really mattered, though, was that we had a Grand National which did not add fuel to the bushfires the animal rights activists keep lighting in an attempt to get rid of one of our greatest sporting occasions. In particular, building the spruce fence cores from plastic rather than timber seems to have worked well in preventing some of the more spectacularly dangerous falls and other sensible reforms in recent years like upping the qualifications for a horse to run are kicking in.
The victory by Auroras Encore (with a 50–1 winner of the Irish National, too) ensured a true bonanza day for the bookies. But I am pleased to say that the Turf column’s Twelve to Follow this winter have not contributed to their happiness. In fact, the Twelve have done us proud. Between them they have appeared on the racecourse on 39 occasions and no fewer than nine of the twelve have won races. No wonder that JP McManus bought a couple of those selected during the season.
Five of them — the Cheltenham Gold Cup second Sir des Champs, Jezki, The New One, Mischievous Millie and Reginaldinho — were multiple winners with more than one victory and the best contribution to our finances among those was the admirable Oliver Sherwood’s Mischievous Millie who won at Fakenham at 7–1 and then at Taunton at 11–2. The best single winner though was Jonjo O’Neill’s admirably consistent handicap hurdler Holywell. His first run for us was in the Pertemps Handicap Hurdle at Warwick when he ran second to Ely Brown. The way he kept on bravely that day after clouting the last hurdle to make it his third consecutive second place filled me with hope for the runs ahead and, although the handicapper had raised him 21lb through the season, he duly won the Pertemps Final at the Cheltenham Festival from the useful Captain Sunshine at the toothsome price of 25–1.
Other winners included Oliver Sherwood’s Puffin Billy, Evan Williams’s Court Minstrel and David O’Meara’s Ifandbutwhynot while Pendra and Our Father each had a second to their name. In fact, since Pendra and Puffin Billy both ran and won after I had despatched the list to The Spectator but before any readers would have seen it I could really claim two more winners out of 41 runs. No need to quibble about that, though, when our profit to the £390 laid out at a level £10 win stake has returned us a total of £690, a thumping great profit of £300.
Mrs Oakley has been promised at least one good dinner out on the proceeds, but regretfully it is the least I can do. A man who leaves Heathrow with somebody else’s suitcase (admittedly the same model with the same label) rather than his wife’s and who cancels a temporarily lost credit card with the result that Mrs O’s version of the card was declined at the head of the Waitrose queue is on something of a recovery
mission.
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