'I'd love to have started training earlier but it was always going to be when Dad was ready - I didn't want to be the one pushing him out'

There's a lot of history in the air at Whatcombe, where ancient, undisturbed turf rolls like a carpet across the Oxfordshire downs, wrapping itself around a long-lost medieval village, where the grave of the prominent stallion Blandford sits alongside Saxon hoards and secret pathways.

Local legends abound, from the stolen bells of the old Norman church, when Geoffrey de Mandeville was lord, to the three mighty oaks, now long gone, known as Adam and Eve and the Serpent.

And then there's the apparition of the flying trainer, who every morning can be seen buzzing up and down the historic Whatcombe gallops on a quad bike, tracking every movement, every stride pattern, every heartbeat of his horses, on slopes where animals of the stamp of Blenheim, Blakeney and Generous were conditioned to win the Derby.