Someone more seasoned in the fluctuations of his chosen vocation might have been tempted to take Robbie Hennessy aside here yesterday and offer some quiet counsel. Not, perhaps, that it would all be downhill from here; but certainly to savour the moment, because joys like these tend to become brief succour against a perennial state of siege.

Ascot stage their richest afternoon's racing of the jump season on Saturday and the meeting could well provide another lucrative haul of prize money for Lambourn trainer Nicky Henderson, who had a treble at the Berkshire course last month.

Perhaps Graham Wylie already knew the poem, when he spent £320,000 to buy On Raglan Road at the Doncaster Sales in May.

Hennessy Day at Newbury proved a crossroads in many different career paths. Most obviously, the success of Madison Du Berlais in the big race reiterated the impression that David Pipe will end up winning at least as many big races as his father, Martin, if not quite so many small ones. At the other end of the spectrum, a hock injury to Inglis Drever confirmed that we will not see much more of one of the best staying hurdlers of recent years. And the latest mishap endured by Sam Thomas left him in an agonising limbo between the two.

Poor old Nicky Henderson is really struggling, now that Mick Fitzgerald has finally packed up. His new stable jockey, Barry Geraghty, is limping along at a strike-rate of one-in-three, and Henderson could scrape together only the five winners last Saturday. The three at Ascot were all ridden by Geraghty, while yesterday the new partnership also made a perfect start to the Hennessy Gold Cup meeting, one of the biggest of the year here at Henderson's local track.

No one is more aware of the perils of a jockey's profession than a jockey himself. And Dougie Costello, counting the days until his plum ride on Character Building in Saturday's Hennessy Gold Cup, is counting no chickens. "It's only Tuesday," he said yesterday. "In our terms, it's still a long time to go until the Hennessy, so right now I'm thinking more about Wetherby tomorrow. But fingers crossed I make it. To ride a horse like that in a race like that will just be such a pleasure."

Denman destroyed his rivals to win the totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Faced with the problem of rocketing demand and a limited growing area, the fiercely protective guardians of France's Champagne region have settled upon a simple solution – extending the boundaries within which the wine can be produced.