Racetrack Wiseguy

For some years now I've insisted that this is my time of year whether there's been any evidence in the actual results or not. That is mainly because it's when the big stables start to bring out their best horses for the winter jumping season, which is the sort of racing one can understand a bit better.

How ironic, then, that a big part of the 'kickstart' this year came about yesterday by following the Professor in with the Aidan O'Brien treble at the Curragh, on the flat, all of which won well at surprisingly good prices and turned negligible stakes into proper ammunition for the forthcoming weeks.

Landing the double today in similarly impressive fashion, my economy is at a year's high point compared to that of the government's, which is wretched, but they don't exercise caution, wisdom or apply any sort of sense to prevailing conditions. And they are a complete shambles. The way things are going, with the revolving doors in Downing Street spinning at a dizzying rate, I'm likely to be Chancellor of the Exchequer sooner than I thought with my proven track record but, of course, confidence is a dangerous thing and so we stick to the plan because it works. Unlike that of Prime Minister Truss. Who would have thought that the worst Prime Minister anybody can remember could be replaced by a worse one. I honestly never thought I'd have to say that.

But not only do we sing when we're winning, we press on.

The success of those O'Brien horses yesterday was 'easy to be persuaded' to back, as I wrote to the Prof. Horses ready to go after a prep run. Not many of his good ones need three chances to win their first race. It's exactly the back-end time of the season when those horses can help themselves. And even though it feels more like jump race weather now that summer's over, there's big prize money to be had. It's always reassuring to read of him in Timeform, Yard having good spell.

We stick with the momentum of the O'Brien stable in making Peking Opera (Leopardstown, 2.05, nap) irresistible if we can have even money. But Ryan Moore goes to Ascot for the Big-Time Charlie races that begin with the long distance heat where Trueshan looks like a favourite worth taking on and the progressive Waterville (Ascot 1.25, pictured) is an option worth taking, mapping the trajectory of his improvement and finding it potentially good value at 7/2.

Also progressive could be Progressive (Stratford, 3.54), with Mr. Henderson going softly softly on a day that is very likely to see Paul Nicholls having any number of winners. Which ones, though. It really is a mug's game to spread it all across big combinations because at short prices it only takes a couple to get beaten to reduce your palace to matchsticks.

Him Malaya (Newton Abbot, 2.55) and Huelgoat (Stratford, 2.14) could be the ones to put in tonight but if the bandwagon starts rolling we could start throwing money around like confetti at all of them because one doesn't want to read the headlines about his fantastic day and not have been on.

Another O'Brien doing well is Fergal and Free Handshake (Market Rasen, 1.17) goes onto this list of six that my next job is to mix up into doubles, trebles and even more ludicrously ambitious concatenations. 

There is a sort of symmetry about believing that having had 6 out of 6 winners on Thurs and Fri, one can do it all again on Sat but even Garfield Sobers only did it once. As Dr. Johnson points out in one of his many brilliant essays, unlike animals, we spend most of our time thinking about the future and the past whereas they, for all we know, seem to live in an ongoing present. And he's right, we live in the present while the race is on but otherwise, we are thinking about what will win forthcoming races or fondly remember those that have won races in the past.

But what we do is go carefully until we have manufactured an advantageous position and then play with that advantage. What those bonkers Conservative politicians do is gamble on an unlikely outsider called Growth when it obviously isn't going to happen. I'd bloody love to be their bookmaker.