Twelve tips for the Flat season

I have a weakness for the versifier Ogden Nash and one of my favourites is his observation:

Shake and shake the ketchup bottle
First none will come and then a lot’ll.

It has been a bit like that this past year with my punting. Last year’s Twelve to Follow for the Flat didn’t lose us a fortune but nor did they make us one. Through the winter, though, the dozen over jumps did us proud. Back in April I totted up the figures and found we were showing a profit of £300 to a £10 level stake. I was being premature. Since then several of the selections have run again, considerably to our benefit. One sadness was that Reginaldinho, Venetia Williams’s handicapper who won twice for us, ran again at Newton Abbot. Alas, he stumbled two fences out and was pulled up, fatally injured. Otherwise it has been pretty well all good news.