Sir Mark Prescott on the whip, bullfighting and surviving the dreaded cold list

On the wall of Sir Mark Prescott's living room, above the fireplace, amid a wealth of curios and antiquities, hangs a painting depicting Newmarket in 1884, looking down the hill to his own Heath House Stables in what seems to have been a golden era for the town.

Centre stage in the scene is taken by the mighty brown colt St Simon, champion racehorse and later leading stallion, tongue lolling, sweating under a rug, sheet and nightcap; in the middle ground stands the upright and formidable trainer Mat Dawson in waistcoat and top hat, next to the portly, aristocratic figure of owner Lord Falmouth – on horseback rather than in the trainer's 4x4 – and stable jockey Fred Archer, resplendent in a snappy lightweight, grey summer suit, offset by a pocket handkerchief.

The head lad, a perpetually natty dresser by all accounts, wears a brown bowler hat, showing the sartorial way to lads all sporting stiff wing collars with buttons uniformly fastened, ready for second lot against the backdrop of the sand track later to become the 'millionaires' row' of the Bury Road.