WHAT a very terrific card there is at Ascot this afternoon, especially for owners - who stand to win significant prize money.

Let me draw your attention to the 3.40, a race fashioned in hell: There are 29 runners, all trying to win. The contest is a handicap with allocated weights designed to have the field finish in a straight line demanding a photo-finish and the possibility of a multiple dead-heat.

Backing a grey horse is ever helpful in such events, for while you are pretty unlikely to pick the winner you will at least be able to identify your horse.

While shares in general are plunging, bookmakers’ shares in particular are going down more than most, which is only good news if you are one of those clients helping to make them bankrupt.

What happens, due to canny advisers employed by our enemies, is that poor results cause layers to make their ‘rules’ more attractive and a careful search of their advertisements, or perusal of ‘deals’ displayed in their shop-windows, will be rewarded by finding those that out-perform their rivals.

They may pay out on an extra place, offer one third of the odds on each-way, give you three times the odds on a single winner in a Lucky 15....the latter a real gamblers’ betwhich bookmakers love taking because you invest fifteen times the stake and when the first horse loses, bang go eight of your bets.

On the credit side, should your first selection win at better than 5-1 it becomes a matter only of how huge a profit will come your way.

At this meeting, in living memory, F Dettori (who recently featured in ‘Where are they now?’) rode seven winners on the trot.

I doubt whether that will ever be done again but there is no very good reason why I should not come up with tipping the brutes that contest the last four races at Her Majesty’s race-course.

UNDERWORLD in the 3.40, RAVENS PASS (4.15), VITAL STATISTICS (4.50) and DOWNHILLER (5.25).

If it worries readers to have no advice on pre-teatime contests, I cannot see BUDDHIST MONK being kept out of a place in the 2.25 at Haydock Park where the number of declarations means that coming fourth will be good enough, unless there are late withdrawals - In which eventuality you could find a bookmaker who pays out on 15 runners.