'He's happiest at the smaller tracks - and well away from the television lights'

On the centenary of Arthur Stephenson’s birth – April 7, 1920 – we remember the legendary trainer in an archive piece first published in the Racing Post on April 10, 1991

In the hurly-burly of the Liverpool winner's enclosure the tentative inquiry was met with the predictable answer. "Would you come and say a few words?" asked microphone-holding Aussie Jim McGrath, in charge of the post-race interviews for closed-circuit television. The response was negative.

Pointing to the assembled press corps, their pens poised like daggers around Caesar, the question was repeated. The answer was the same. “I know them, and the boys know me,” he shrugged.