'He wasn't the most talented horse, he just outjumped everything'

Make A Stand

Trainer Martin Pipe

Biggest Win 1997 Champion Hurdle

Other career highlights Won Grade 2 Kennel Gate Novices' Hurdle, Lanazarote Hurdle and Tote Gold Trophy

He was the one who really got me into racing. My grandmother owned a horse with Martin Pipe called Errant Knight who won 16 times and so I always followed the stable's horses.

His running style was just brilliant and, although he probably wasn't the most talented horse in the race that year he just out-jumped everything, which was completely exhilarating to me at the age of 12.

It was always a case of David and Goliath with him because he was a little chestnut up against these big National Hunt-breds. He just skipped over the hurdles with AP McCoy. Maybe these days watered ground would stop a horse being able to do that but at the time he was just brilliant.

It all started from there really because I remember watching Eulogy win the Whitbread two years later and I was writing a weekly racing column for my local paper, the Wilts and Glos Standard, by the time I was 16.

My roots were very much National Hunt but then Ben Haslam took me to York, which is not a bad place to go Flat racing for the first time.

The pedigree and breeding side of the Flat fascinates me but you're still just as likely to find me at a wet Newbury in November as a summer's day at Goodwood.