Martin Dwyer: ‘Dad drove me to Kingsclere and said, ‘Don’t f*** it up, lad - I haven’t got the petrol money to come back for you’’

Martin Dwyer's relationship with horses was a flimsy one at the outset. He used to ride his mate's sister's pony when she wasn't looking and he liked the feeling of speed, although not so much the feeling of falling off while wearing football boots and no helmet. His dad used to take him to the betting shop on occasion, "but only so I could watch his bike, because he had it nicked once".

None of this was the foundation of a good CV for a chirpy little Scouser to send out to trainers – once he'd abandoned early ambitions to be a footballer for Everton or a stuntman in cowboy films – but what the boy did have on his side was family, and when the time came they did what good families do.

His dad's relationship with Ian Balding was a practically non-existent one, but Martin snr knew from betting shop observation that the toff from Hampshire was a good trainer who had a solid record as a nurturer of apprentices, so he wrote him a letter and, to everybody's surprise, got his boy a job.