'It was the lowest I've ever been, struggling to see the light - and within a few months we've won the Champion Hurdle!'

Jeremy Scott, forewarned by a life lived at 1,000ft above sea level, is suitably forearmed, wrapped up against the elements as he peruses the gaggle of misfits gathered at Higher Holworthy Farm this morning.

The ITV camera crew and the hapless Racing Post hack have clearly not done their meteorological homework, and by now the awestruck wonder of gazing below at the magical expanse of Wimbleball Lake, at the start of a bright, crisp Exmoor day, has given way to a feeling that thermal underwear should have been prioritised over video reruns of last week's Champion Hurdle.

"This comes straight in from Iceland," says the toasty countryman, with less glee and more geographical familiarity. His grounding as a dairy farmer on these same fields taught him how cold, wet and cruel the Somerset weather can be; these days he can state with some assurance that the temperatures here are several degrees lower than those which Philip Hobbs and Johnson White have to contend with a mere six miles away.