Layers get out the scissors as much-maligned Santini comes of age

It's called Festival Trials day, and they don't call them trials for nothing – sometimes you'd rather be facing a hanging judge at the assizes. It's the kind of Saturday, six weeks from the main event, that offers little time to regroup, recuperate or hastily change tack should things go sorely awry, and you can guarantee that awry will rear its ugly head.

Colin Tizzard summed it up neatly, digging deep into his compendium of old Dorset aphorisms before informing us sagely that "it's a funny old world". He'd watched the quietly fancied Slate House do his festival prospects no good at all when pulled up in the Cotswold Chase, then had his chin dragged off the floor by the Ballymore trial success of Harry Senior – now a 12-1 shot for the Albert Bartlett – taking both results with the equanimity of a man who's seen it all before.

He wasn't alone in having to draw deep from reserves of resilience. A few reputations were enhanced, more than a few bold plans had to be tossed disconsolately on to the pile marked 'seemed like a good idea at the time', but for the most part the bookmakers treated the day with caution, trimming prices more with blunt nail scissors than with the traditional chainsaw, offsetting their confusion with the thought of a thousand ante-post accumulators biting the dust before January has even departed the scene.