Long night's journey into day as Grand Prix track casts stormy spell

Like many people who came of racing age before the advent of betting shops, let alone the internet, my father was always armed with a couple of unshakable systems.

No horse with the form figures 42 ever went unbacked. And when visiting a new racecourse, his favourite method involved noting the name of the trainer emblazoned on the first horsebox he saw, be it at the track or on the way to the races.

Less a punting strategy and more a survival technique, it is the people inside the vans that I look for.