The Christmas Nap

There's a lot to like about Christmas if you pick and choose your way through it with due discrimination and it is a particularly good few days for horse racing.

There are plenty of favourite horses to be seen but it might be wise to remember that they are facing their biggest challenges of the season in the biggest races they'll run in before Cheltenham. And I like to think of Christmas as a time of frugality rather than excess and so I don't want to throw money around as if, as the demise of Western capitalism would have us believe, it was going out of fashion. Well, it's just the fashion for those that have it already.

And so although we might have small interests in our favourite horse Bobs Worth as he takes on Grand Crus in the Novice Chase at Kempton and might look at Giles Cross at decent odds in the Welsh National and a speculative punt on Captain Chris who might upset the King George (although I'd much prefer 10/1 than the 7's he's more likely to be), it will be Rock on Ruby to beat Binocular and Overturn in the Christmas Hurdle that carries our main hopes of putting this feature finally into proper profit. I'm going to avail myself of 2/1 while I can.

We went in, had some winners and got out in one piece. It might have been better but it could have been worse. It's not an easy game but we didn't do bad at it.