'I've worked out it's cost me £56,000 to date' - Sir Mark Prescott on Covid-19

Newmarket is readying itself to let out a sonic boom of pent-up excitement, but you wouldn't know it to drive up the High Street. In less than 24 hours a flood of two-year-old bluebloods will burst the dam of their containment and noisily announce the impending arrival of the first Classics, but for the moment there's a hush about the old place that's not so much unusual as unheard of.

It'll be nice to hear hooves on turf again, of course – albeit the Rowley Mile without a crowd will hardly rattle the eardrums – but the peace and quiet of lockdown have had their compensations for trainers of a philosophical disposition; for some the lingering pandemic has presented rare opportunities, even if the broader implications are never far from the mind.

"I went eight weeks without having one run badly," says Sir Mark Prescott, relishing the idyll that ended with a bump when his first runner back was beaten at Kempton. "My owners have been wonderful, the weather has been extraordinary and the traffic in the town has been less than when I came here in the 60s, so it's been a tremendous pleasure, and if you weren't going skint and a large proportion of the world wasn't dying it would have all been very enjoyable.