All bets off

However historic and significant the leadership contest, bookmakers can usually be relied on to supply a flippant subtext by way of betting odds on 'runners and riders'. But the recent Vatican Stakes, probably the most momentous event of the decade, seemed to attract few wagers

Where the bookies missed a trick was in failing to follow-up on the election of Pope Francis, the former Cardinal Bergoglio, of Argentina. They should have laid odds on the first anti-Catholic bigot to stick the knife in the new Pontiff. The field would have included some strongly fancied runners, with Richard Dawkins the obvious favourite at 6/4. Hard on the heels of this consistent if highly-strung performer, I would have nominated the steadier stayer, Philip Pullman, as second favourite at 5/2.

I'd have quoted Stephen Fry at 15/2, despite carrying top weight; Polly Toynbee, a fractious filly, at 10/1; the temperamental shaggy beast A.C. Grayling, 16-1. Others including the erratic Woody Allen and moody Martin Amis, listed at 20-1, would have headed numerous outsiders from the Beeb, Tablet and Gaydian stables, with the mare, Mary Warnock, perhaps past her best now, at 100-1.

Maybe I am missing my way as a turf accountant because, in the event, my book would have cleaned up -- the winner being Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Gaydian. Within 24 hours of the Pope's election, this dark horse tweeted a link to a 2011 article by Hugh O'Shaughnessy that accused Cardinal Bergoglio of conniving with the Argentine navy to hide political prisoners from human rights inspectors.

The source of this story was given as an Argentine journalist, Horacio Verbitsky. Unfortunately for the Gaydian, as the pernicious rag later had to admit, Verbitsky "does not make this claim". So as The Daily Telegraph gleefully pointed out, the story was false and a gross libel.

After a stewards' inquiry, however, the result stands: Rusbridger was first to put the knife in. His form guide now reads: very fast out of the stalls but runs out of staying power after a few yards.