'It's a pity it had to end like this - but it just wasn't the same without her'

On a residential street on the outskirts of Preston, the once bustling stable of Eric Alston has fallen quiet. No clip-clop of hooves, no rattle of a tractor engine, no raised voices of staff, just the sound of silence.

The eerie feeling is amplified by the lingering fog on a cold morning, the yard unusually spotless at a time of day when horses would be making their way to and from the gallops.

This has been Alston's home all his life. In the early 1980s, he turned the place from a dairy farm into a thriving racing stable. Now the horses and staff at Edges Farm have moved on to pastures new and the gallop will revert to farmland.