From avid spectator to winning amateur via million guinea buys

With a bit of confidence and the requisite self-discipline people can transform themselves – and less suddenly becomes a whole lot more. So it has proved with Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, of Qatar Racing and Qipco, who I first met for a highly over-orchestrated interview some five years ago when he was accompanied by more minders than an ageing New York mafia mobster might require on his first holiday back in Sicily for 40 years. The resultant interview was more guarded than Fort Knox.

We knew little of him then except he was just over 20 years old and, in possession of money that would make Philip Green look like a passing vagrant, was in the innocent foothills of buying racehorses.

His chauffeur-driven Maybach whispered across the gravel outside the Jockey Club Rooms and he emerged from the back seat through a deferentially opened door.