Gary Moore: 'I can't think there's a God but I prayed Josh would pull through'

Persuading an interview out of Gary Moore may not be quite as hard as getting an audience with the Pope, but it's never a foregone conclusion. It's not that the West Sussex trainer is actively hostile to the press; he's a decent and down-to-earth fellow, after all, and wife Jayne, the daughter of a former Fleet Street hack, has impressed upon him the need to show respect for us where it's (almost) due. It's more a combination of self-effacing modesty, a busy schedule and a genetic predisposition passed on to him by his father.

Charlie Moore trained at a ramshackle yard opposite the six-furlong pole at Brighton and for 36 years made a habit of turning the base metal of cheap and challenging horses into the gold of racecourse success. Occasionally he unearthed nuggets like Lir and Royal Measure, but mostly the one-time used-car dealer was content to ply his trade round the 'southern circuit', doing things right and supplementing his income with the odd gamble, the details of which he was not minded to share in advance with nosy journalists.

"He wouldn't have had you in his yard," confirms Gary succinctly, offering coffee, an armchair and an uncensored hour of his time, perhaps against his better judgement but with faultless hospitality nonetheless. "It wasn't really a gambling stable," he explains, "but he'd line a few up every now and then. There were a lot more sellers back in the day and I think they used to get together and take turns. It certainly wasn't like it is now, when everybody knows everybody else's business."