You run for US vice-president, and end up as the subject of a remarkably sympathetic docu-drama

Willie Mullins has described Boston Bob as a match for any novice he has ever brought to the Festival, which guarantees he will start a hot favourite for the Albert Bartlett Hurdle today. It would be no surprise to see him look a Gold Cup winner in the making, but the odds will be very short about a horse running on quick ground for the first time.

It is going to happen some day. And only when it does, perhaps, will everyone truly appreciate what has gone before.

Juliannne Moore is cast as Alaska's presidential hopeful in a recreation of 2008 election race

Mitt Romney will be able to boast his way forward in the Republican nomination campaign today after scoring a respectable tally of states in last night’s ‘Super Tuesday’ contests. But a squeaker in Ohio where he dodged a bullet told the alternative story that he is still struggling to seal the deal with the party grassroots.

Comment

What's changed is that he is doing even worse among Republican grassroots voters than four years ago

To paraphrase Winston Churchill's words about the battle of El Alamein and its place in the Second World War, this month of January does not signify the end of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, nor even necessarily the beginning of the end. But it is very much the end of the beginning.

Of Romney's rivals, only Ron Paul has a genuine national organisation, built up in previous runs

As the Republican primaries get under way, David Usborne is granted exclusive access to the crack team in the President's home town who hope to neutralise the enemy and return their man to the White House

Perry, Paul, Cain, Santorum, Bachmann or Gingrich? None of the above, it seems

Inside Track

Is anyone saying that Wenger did not have the means to make a better job of preparing for this now crumbling season? Kean suggests as much