Alex Salmond may be jockeying for position with Donald Dewar in a two-horse race to be Scotland's First Minister, but yesterday in Edinburgh he was celebrating a very different winning streak as The Herald's racing tipster.
When he took over the famed binoculars from Foreign Secretary Robin Cook three months ago, the SNP leader immediately declared that his winnings would be donated to his two favourite charities.
Mr Salmond's soaraway 50% success rate and a matching donation from The Herald means that Shelter Scotland and the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund will each receive #177.94.
Shelter said that the money would pay the phone bills of their Housing Aid Centres in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen for a week.
Anyone who put #10 on each of Alex Salmond's tips since February is now #133.33 in profit.
His most notable achievement was a treble at the Cheltenham Festival and he also advised Herald readers to split their stakes in the Grand National between the nap, Rough Quest, and the winner, Earth Summit.
So has he done better than his Labour predecessor? During a visit to a Shelter Housing Aid Centre Mr Salmond tried - but not too hard - to look modest. ''The facts speak for themselves. We are not just winning in the political polls. What I really want to do is synchronise the winning percentage at the races with the party's opinion poll rating.''
His winning streak has also brought him unexpected problems. ''People used to ask me about the national finances. Now they ask about the National fences. They used to ask for my autograph. Now they demand racing tips.''
The SNP leader takes his racing role seriously but agrees it's also fun. ''I think I felt the pressure when the very first horse I tipped didn't win. It ran for a mile, which was unfortunate as the race was two miles. But afterwards I got three winners in a row.''
Can it be a coincidence that since he took over the reins from Robin Cook at The Herald support for the Nationalists has surged in the polls for a Scottish Parliament?
Says Mr Salmond: ''The editor, Harry Reid, persuaded me to write this column to demonstrate that I had interests beyond politics. Now people are beginning to say that I should give up politics and concentrate on racing. Others are suggesting that it is because I spend time on racing that the SNP are doing so well.''
Mr Salmond asked Herald readers if they would also like to contribute to his favourite charities by testing out his tips every week.
Today's tips
The Commentator Page 10
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article