'I thought if this horse didn't win me a Group 1, I was never going to win one - I'd be destined to be a trainer of bad horses forever'

On a crisp, sunny morning at Kingsdown Stables, Ed Walker looks very much at home. As all residents of the Valley of the Racehorse know, Upper Lambourn is part of that curious ecosystem where everything is two degrees colder than the rest of Christendom, but the chill is easily offset by a busy schedule and a snatched cup of coffee between lots, and the mood heading into a hectic early autumn is warmed by chaotic contentment.

Longchamp is coming at us over the horizon, Ascot is lurking round the corner and Walker will be a key player at both, but while the green Wellington-booted 42-year-old may look 'to the manor born', it took him a long time to find his place in the racing world.

When he arrived in rural Berkshire with wife Camilla, this was his fifth yard in the first six years of his training career and staff were beginning to steer clear of him because of his itinerant tendencies. He had expanded his way out of four Newmarket stables and was beginning to look rootless when Kingsdown beckoned, but it wasn't just fresh bricks and mortar that he was in need of. Nowadays this place is properly home rather than a rental and there are three young children on the ground; back then there was less of a sense of belonging anywhere.