'He just looked at me and shook his head – that sums up Michael'

I've been lucky enough to work for some fantastic people such as Martin Pipe and Francois Doumen, but the person I would say had the biggest influence on my career was Michael Jarvis.

I went to work for Michael after working at various places. He was a very quiet man, he didn't say much – but when he did, you took notice. Underneath it all he had a great sense of humour, he’d suddenly say something and it would come out of nowhere. I saw him at his highs and his lows, when he was doing really well and when the numbers dropped.

Michael Jarvis: a quiet man with a great sense of humourCredit: Chris Bourchier

One of the things he taught me was to treat all of your horses the same. He always used to say that once a horse is within your yard, the good ones find you, you don’t find them. The good horses he had weren’t always champions, he developed and turned them into stars from humble beginnings.

That is very much how things have happened for me. All of my Grade 1 winners have all come from small beginnings. Double Shuffle was well beaten in a Market Rasen bumper and you wouldn’t have known he’d go on to finish second in a King George, the same goes for Gods Own, The Worlds End and Summerville Boy.