5 JUNE 1964, Page 11

How to Pick the Winner The combination of Derby week

and the D-Day commemoration reminds me of a sad venture of mine. Partly to fill in the time of waiting for the assault, 1 made a book at 50 Division Headquarters on the 1944 Derby. Very few of my colleagues knew one end of a• racehorse from the other. So—poor simple souls —they backed on the old woman's system of name association. And all with one accord settled on the same two horses. Ocean Swell won at 18-1 and Happy Landing was third at 33-1.