William Jarvis: 'I'm told I should be richer by now - but I'm not bitter at all'

A few weeks down the line and William Jarvis is now only faintly embarrassed when reminded of his tearful outburst after the Falmouth Stakes. Yes, he was upset following Lady Bowthorpe's luckless and unavailing bid for glory at Newmarket, but that kind of blubbing just is not the done thing at Harrow and a rather stiffer upper lip might have been more the ticket.

He's paid the price since in ribbing, but there can't be a single fellow professional who did not empathise with the depth of feeling that accompanied the disappearance of such a fleeting opportunity. In some stables, the pain of a Group 1 tilt thwarted by heavy equine traffic might be soothed by the balm of another in the offing, but for mere mortals, such moments arrive less often than hen's teeth on a blue moon and have to be seized or their passing mourned.

"What frustrated me about the Falmouth – and I'm not saying we should have won but I know we could have won – was that it was a chance missed for everybody at the yard who works so hard," explains the trainer. "I know 60-year-old men don't cry, but that's why I was so emotional, because it mattered so much."