'Your family think they're posh - my family know they're not!'

When Emma Lavelle declares that Paisley Park has "taken us to places we never thought we'd go", there's no suggestion she's about to get out the photo album and show off her holiday snaps.

Cheltenham in March can be grand, but there are one or two less savoury destinations that the trainer would rather not revisit – clearly still haunting her like a half-built hotel on the Costa del Sol – and when she adds the dreaded words "good and bad" to her statement, it's for a reason.

Jumps trainers, even ones as outwardly 'nice' as Lavelle, are a hardy bunch, and those who have been doing the job for as long as she has (since 1998, if you can believe it) have seen a variety of slings and arrows rain down on them, but few will have anaphylactic shock and self-strangulation on their CV, and even fewer would want it.