'I've never paid six figures for a horse and never will - I learned pretty quickly you're only one phone call away from f*** all'

Raymond Anderson Green is sitting in the lounge of his Hyde Park home with his life's work scattered around him like confetti when the sound of horses knocks him off his stride.

Clip clop, clip clop, clip clop. It is not a noise you would expect in a residential street in central London, but it adds to the ambience as the long-serving owner turns another page in his back catalogue of winners.

Green, who has meticulously documented all of his runners over the past 48 years in a manner befitting a man who made his fortune in banking and property, hears the distinctive clatter multiple times a day as a local riding school passes by his mews home on their way to and from the park.