This time last year Oscar Whisky was the tip and he came to win the race only to trip over the last hurdle (going just a bit too fast if you ask me -who has never sat on a horse), which spoiled my day more than somewhat.
Old favourite Get Me Out of Here is in opposition tomorrow, who I'm glad has been putting some well-deserved 1's against his name recently after some very worthy 2's.
Long Run is one that I'm happy to oppose and so, even given the Henderson stable's treble today, I'll be giving Silviniaco Conti every consideration at Haydock; another of Henderson's several stable stars, Finian's Rainbow, has interesting opposition at Ascot in For Non Stop and Captain Chris, who returns after a troubled season last year still capable of proving to be the top class horse I thought he was on his way to being at the start of 2011/12.
Oscar Whisky would be the selection but it's such an obvious thing to do that 8/11 is all we can have now and 4/7 would be no surprise tomorrow. Similar things apply to Balder Succes and Baltimoar at Haydock.
Katkeau could be one for the Pipe stable in a race they have made their own in recent years, Haydock, 2.30, where we will get a price worth having.
But, the nap on a Saturday of many and various options, will be Easter Day, Ascot 12.35.
Maybe tomorrow might be the day that one can tiptoe through the alternatives and put some kind of combination together with the nap, plus Katkeau, Oscar Whisky and Silviniaco Conti.
But, as we know after the very expensive defeat of Grand Crus last week, nine out of ten of us account holders has the footnote 'Mug Punter' added at the bottom of our bookmaker's file on us and we spend whatever fraction we choose to of what we get from our week at work to pay for their fat cigars.
You flirt with ruin every time you look at a horse race and wonder what might win it. And that, for me, is the highest form of glamour.
David Green
- David Green (Books) is the imprint under which I published booklets of my own poems. The original allocation of ISBN numbers is used up now, though. The 'Collected Poems' are now available as a pdf. The website is now what it has become, often more about music than books and not so often about poems. It will be about whatever suggests itself.
