only Avon &apos;s Pride gives full value in Cesarewitch . by Tom Forrest . horse-racing &apos;s happiest invalid today is jockey Bobby Elliot . he broke a collarbone only last Thursday , yet his specialist declares that in three or four days he should be fit for riding gallops &amp;hellip; and then for the plum job of the week - pushing home Avon &apos;s Pride in the Cesarewitch at Newmarket on Saturday . young bones mend quickly . but the back of a big-race favourite is no place for a jockey with one wing trailing , so Elliot will have to pass a pretty stiff midweek try-out - or trainer Dick Hern must find a substitute . top-class riders are still available &amp;hellip; like Ron Hutchinson or , at a pound or two overweight , Scobie Breasley or Eph Smith , the most likely choice as he rode Avon &apos;s Pride in his gallop yesterday morning . Avon &apos;s Pride becomes my final selection , because he alone of the three Cesarewitch horses recommended a week ago for autumn double bets remains as a first-rate value-for-money proposition . tumbled . El Surpriso , 33-1 last week-end , has been slashed to 12-1 . and Alcoa &apos;s odds have tumbled from 25-1 to 14-1 . they could still win , but if you have to take these new prices it looks as if you have already missed the boat . Avon &apos;s Pride has been reduced too , but less spectacularly - from 14-1 to 12-1 . this is a rate that could still be confidently accepted without the feeling of being short-changed . the four-year-old &apos;s chance is outstanding . he has the speed &amp;hellip; any horse who can play so powerful a part in shorter races , as in the 1 1/4-mile Vaux gold tankard and Ebor handicap , will not be found short of sheer pace with half a mile further to go . he has the stamina &amp;hellip; the big win of the season for Avon &apos;s Pride was in Epsom &apos;s Roseberry handicap , of the same 2 1/4-mile length as the Cesarewitch . he has the courage &amp;hellip; no horse can do without a stout heart under the ordeal of that long , lung-bursting Cesarewitch straight . and in Avon &apos;s Pride &apos;s whole career he has been often outpointed but never outbattled . the weight . at 7 st 11 lb , 3 lb below the middle of the range , the handicapper has certainly taken an indulgent line . direct form , this season &apos;s form , suggests that two of his most heavily backed rivals - Angazi ( 12-1 ) and Trelawny ( 14-1 ) - must produce quite unexpected reserves to beat Avon &apos;s Pride this week . and through these horses most of the others can be declared safely held . technique , rather than tactics , will be needed from the jockey . the Cesarewitch is always a hard-run struggle from the start &amp;hellip; that will suit Avon &apos;s Pride , but the rider must use a hustling , strong-arm style , or the colt might well idle his chance away . authority . El Surpriso is one they all have to beat . there was no mistaking the authority of her win at Nottingham last week , and with a mere 7 st 1 lb , and the energetic Ray Reader riding , this filly could be the weak link to wreck the whole handicap . almost as lightly burdened at 7 st 2 lb , is Alcoa . though less obviously thrown in at the weights , Alcoa is such a rugged , unrelenting stayer that Mick Greening is sure to be driving her down the straight with glowing visions of galloping them all into the ground . among the class horses - the top half dozen , with weights of 8 st 9 lb or more - Lester Piggott &apos;s mount , Sunny Way ( 20-1 ) , is the only one I seriously fear . Morecambe is left out because no eight-year-old has ever won the race ; Farrney Fox because his recent form is sadly degenerate ; New Brig because he has not raced since May ; Agreement because he no longer has the force that once won him two Doncaster cups ; Trelawny because it takes almost 2 1/4 miles before he starts to warm up . neither 1959 winner Come to Daddy nor his stablemate and brother Usurper has lived up to high hopes this season . while Honest Boy Aristarchus , Cold Comfort , Tarquinian and Narratus are run-of-the-mill stayers who could run well &amp;hellip; but hardly well enough . suspect . Persian Lancer &apos;s stamina is suspect for a horse at the short odds of 12-1 - I believe he will last out only on the best of going . and Utrillo ( 25-1 ) will not race at all on soft ground - he sulks unless he can hear his feet rattle . hock-deep mud would be ideal though for Annotation ( 20-1 ) and Python ( 20-1 ) , both powerful but one-paced plodders . and game little Angazi is a proven mudlark . in Python &apos;s stablemate , Night Porter , we have the crankiest character of them all - but a real live one at 40-1 , if you care to take a chance on his missing any mud that may be flying from his rivals &apos; heels . he will refuse to race if any hits his face . none of the others seems at all likely to win , and I rate Night Porter and Sunny Way the best of the long shots . but the final placings I hope for are Avon &apos;s Pride 1 , El Surpriso 2 , Alcoa 3 . Just Great our Arc best . a brave turnout of British horses - Just Great , High Hat and Tenacity - take the field at Longchamp this afternoon to challenge the swashbuckling European champion , Right Royal 5 , in the &amp;pound;50,000 Prix de l&apos;Arc de Triomphe . ours is a team without a captain . but even with the stay-at-home ace St Paddy , waiting for a second-division fade-out at Newmarket on Friday , Britain &apos;s prestige need not suffer in Paris . nobody would call the three raiders a force to flash triumphantly through the richest race this side of the Atlantic . but neither are they , as the French believe , just so many sitting targets to be blasted aside in the hurricane rush of Right Royal . Just Great is no sitter &amp;hellip; though he staged something like a sit-down strike at the starting gate to lose his St Leger chance . he lost the Derby too through rough-house treatment by other horses . in four remaining races this year , Just Great had a fair chance , and won them all . I make him best of the British . new partner Lester Piggott must get him off with the rest , steer clear of trouble &amp;hellip; and who knows to what heights Just Great may rise ? formidable . High Hat is less of a mystery . we know he is no match for St Paddy , but he has matched , and mastered , Petite Etoile . that is a formidable qualification . Duncan Keith rides . Tenacity has not yet attacked the top class . but what an improver this enormous , late-developing filly is . yet to make any of our trio more than an each-way bet would be more patriotic than prudent . Right Royal is not the only star in opposition . Match 3 will be there &amp;hellip; cantering winner of the French St Leger . so will stablemate Dicta Drake , on whom Max Garcia has a chance to make amends for the suicidal tactics which cost them the Doncaster St Leger . Italian crack Molvedo , with a runaway success at Deauville on his last French trip , shapes like another Ribot . so he should - he is a son of Ribot , and Ribot &apos;s jockey , veteran Enrico Camiel rides him too . but in that chestnut-strewn Longchamp paddock they will all be dominated by the magnificence of the loose-limbed giant Right Royal . and all logic points to his being as dictatorial on the track as in the pre-race parade . T F . this is Lochroe all over again says Dick Francis . I took a ride , a few days ago , on an echo from the past - on a small-framed , brown four-year-old named Vulgate . the echo ? - from Lochroe . they are half brothers out of the mare Loch Cash , and were sired by the top jumping stallions Vulgan and King Hal . Vulgate looks as intelligent and handles as easily as Lochroe - and jumps in the same style . if he moves less perfectly , it is because Lochroe was the best-moving &apos;chaser I have known . trained by Bill Marshall at Cheltenham , the beautifully broken-in youngster can be seen on Saturday at Fontwell , where he comes out for the first time this season in the handicap hurdle ( 4.15 ) . at home he does not wear shoes on his hind feet . none of the Marshall horses do . this ensures that if a hindleg strikes a foreleg - a frequent occurrence - the injury is restricted to bruising . no shoes are needed for road work . the stable yard , on the top of Cleeve Hill overlooking Cheltenham racecourse leads straight out on to open commons . it is usual for a mare who has produced one winning jumper to produce others , even if not of the same standard , and generally in steeplechasers it is the influence of the mare which predominates . if one of her progeny jumps well , they all do , ( and if one jumps appallingly they all do ! ) , regardless of the sire . most remarkable examples of half-brothers are Gay Donald and Pas Seul . both these gold cup winners - by Gay Light and Erin &apos;s Pride respectively - had Pas de Quatre for their dam . both , broken and trained by different trainers , were blundering jumpers until they were seven , at which age they began to outgrow their carelessness , and their getaway burst of speed took over . related . in Northumberland , the sparkling Kerstin &apos;s full brother and sister - Vindicated ( now with Guy Cunard ) and Lady Nenagh - made their mark for Verly Bewicke , many of whose horses are related to each other . another north-country star , Rough Tweed , winner of Manchester &apos;s champion novice &apos;chase last April , will have a full-brother running over here this season . it is four-year-old Holy Loch , trained by Bobby Norris in Northamptonshire , who makes his racecourse debut - over hurdles - early in December . and I will be most interested in this Irish youngster &apos;s progress . I gave him his first schooling over jumps in this country last month - and he showed he is an apt pupil learning fast . Honeymoor out . Honeymoor , ante-post favourite for the Cambridgeshire ( Newmarket , October 28 ) , has been scratched from the race . he was cast in his box on Thursday and an x-ray revealed that he had a leg injury . some bookmakers yesterday made Rachel and Golden Sands joint favourites at 16-1 . rugby union specials . Phil Taylor charge sinks the Scots . London Scottish 6 Northampton 8 : by John Reed . one must hand it to skipper Phil Taylor and his burly Northampton men . they shook Richmond rigid three weeks ago at the athletic ground with a grip of iron . yesterday on the same ground they retained their unbeaten record ( six victories in seven games ) with a superb recovery after the sinewy Scots had led 6-0 for nearly an hour . five sparkling minutes of fluid , exciting rugby did the trick . and the Saints showed what a great side they can be . how rewarding , then , that the winning try should be scored by beefy Taylor himself . after 21 minutes of the second-half England scrum-half Dickie Jeeps booted the ball high ahead , and Scottish full-back Gordon Macdonald knocked on . it was to prove an expensive error . for the rampaging Northampton forwards were up in a flash , Clive Daniels whipped the ball to Taylor and the Northampton captain burst through for the line . it would have taken a brick wall to stop him , as he dived over in the corner for an unconverted try . five minutes earlier the London Scottish defence had been split asunder . right wing Frank Sykes , dodging and darting past grasping hands found himself surrounded . he threw out a long , overhead , 20-yard pass to the centre of the field as if he was a cricketer , fly-half John Shurvington picked it up neatly on the bounce and shot through to score under the posts . full-back Roger Hosen converted . great rally . Northampton had staged a great rally . in the first half they had looked listless and a little tired in comparison with the energetic alert Scots . but what a change after the interval . their massive scrum gained firm control in the tight , where Andy Johnson , who may well win an England trial this season , outhooked David Hayburn , who was deputising for Scottish international Norman Bruce ( injured ) and won the ball frequently against the head . 