'People will be looking at Might Bite as though he's got something to prove'

Nico de Boinville isn't complaining. Actually, he's grumbling a bit about Brexit, if you must know. He wouldn't mind what happened, so he says, as long as there was some leadership, but there isn't – so we agree that Nicky Henderson should be running the country and leave it at that.

Mostly, though, he realises that there's not much point feeling aggrieved when you're the man in the saddle of such a wealth of talent from the country's most successful yard, with favourites for the King George, Champion Chase and Gold Cup on your roster and countless others in reserve. Nobody's going to feel sorry for you, as he found when he was sidelined at the end of October, not with one of those dramatic injuries the doctors say will keep you out for six months but you come back from in a fortnight, but with a slightly underwhelming broken thumb.

"You don't get any sympathy at all for a thumb," he confirms, "particularly not from the wife." So he quietly went through the process, had the operation, got it pinned back together and put in a cast, all the while aiming rueful glances at the preparations for the new season steadily gathering pace at Seven Barrows.