At this point Patrick "Double Carpet" Maguire chipped in. His victory in the competition last year, he said, was down to the fact that he liked the name of his 33/1 winner Countrywide Flame - because it amusingly reminded him of cunts.
All of this brings the game into disrepute. It suggests - as Nick Jenkins has long insisted - that it's all down to blind luck.
If only Ben adopted a similar approach. IF ONLY - those two last words of the derelict punter.
If only he'd slapped all his remaining wedge on BENEFFICIENT today, he'd now be sitting on a pot of £1,400 and drinking Doombar through a straw. Instead of which he's left without a pot to piss it away in.
Benefficient was incredibly game there today. He led them round most of the way and when Dynaste turned the screws and forged ahead on the way down the hill, a lesser beast would have folded. But he kept at it, and at it again, until finding a brilliant leap at the last and the reserves of stamina to get him to the line.
Did Dynaste go too soon? Maybe, maybe not. At the Festival here last year in the Fred Winter, Tom Scudamore went for home too soon on Kazlian. Miles clear turning in, the chasing pack eventually swallowed him up close home. He did the same thing on the same horse only this last weekend in the Imperial Cup at Sandown.
And here today Scudamore once more took it up a long way out. The New Course at Cheltenham is notoriously stiff, particularly in these relentless Festival end-to-end gallops. Maybe he thought the horse was - if you'll pardon the expression - giving him a good feel. Maybe he thought stamina was guaranteed after that Feltham win over 3 miles. Who knows.
Who cares? Colin, for one, doesn't give a flying monkey's. He trousered 200 notes while the rest of us rustled through our papers to find the next racecard.
The Pertemps was won by a JONJO horse wearing FIRST TIME HEADGEAR carrying the SPECTROSCOPE colours. There are clues a-plenty in that one sentence alone. Clues that we all walked blunderingly by.
The Ryanair was run just as Colin always said it would be run - and I take my hat off to the lad. Cue Card won't stay, I told him, ACCEPT IT! Cue Card didn't only stay, he stayed the hardest way - by making the running and being harried relentlessly all the way round by Champion Court. When he stretched away up the hill, it was a defining moment for a true champion.
In what's becoming a sickening trend, Steve was the only one of us to pick out this winner - presumably because the beast's name reminded him of an old family pet or something.
In the World Hurdle I thought old Bog Warrior had them all on the stretch as they turned in, but it wasn't to be. The speedier types collared him. Solwhit, so often the witness to Hurricane Fly's prosecution, had his day in the sun and it was some training performance to get him here.
Colin jerked away his precious JOKER DOUBLE on Oscar Whisky here, and surely now regrets committing the cardinal sin of punting: changing his mind.
And so now we turn for home.
Colin may be able to reel-in the leader with a relatively short priced winner.
But the rest of us need some inspiration. Think of a name - any name...
1. Steve M £937.60
2. Colin £301.25
3. Si £140.63
4. Nick £109.55
5. Neville £103.96
6. Tim £103.13
7. Dave £100
8. Steve C £82.50
9. Paul £56.42
10. Bryn & Patrick £50
12. Ben £10
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