'I really liked it but if I'd kept on smoking and drinking I'd be dead by now'

It doesn't matter how you dress it up, a gangrenous pancreas isn't pretty, especially if it's your own. David Evans had one and it nearly killed him, which would have been a shame, because he'd have missed winning the Wokingham with Rohaan. Luckily he had an 'alarm call' before the condition became fatal. It was a brutal awakening but one that saved his life.

Like many incidents in Evans' haywire life to that point, it involved drinking. A lot. He and his wife Emma were on the way back from Dubai and they were flying business class, which meant there was a bar that was open for the duration. Even now his eyes light up at the thought of the fun that can be had with a ready supply of booze at 30,000 feet, but by the time he got home the fun was over.

"I was crippled up with guts ache," he remembers in non-medical fashion, "my stomach swelled up and I couldn't get rid of it, so I went to the quack and ended up in hospital for a week. I couldn't eat, drink or move and I was in agony, and eventually I had a scan and they told me I had gangrene in the pancreas and put me on a drip for six days.