The blind owner, the sick horse and the potholed road to festival favouritism

Good horses have a habit of making life seem simple. The better they are, the more seamless, the less wrinkled, the landscape around them tends to look. Only those closest to them know the truth about the obstacles along the way, and success usually finds a way of smoothing the rough edges off even their recollections.

After a season characterised by a systematic rise through the handicap ratings and an unstoppable march towards the Cheltenham Festival it might be tempting to imagine that the journey for Paisley Park and the team behind him has always been plain sailing; but if a tilt at the Sun Racing Stayers' Hurdle looks like a plan well hatched for a horse now trading as the 2-1 favourite, the truth is rather less linear.

The bare bones of the story are remarkable, beginning with owner Andrew Gemmell, who refuses to let the detail of being blind since birth impact on his enjoyment of a singular racehorse who came within a whisker of death just one run into what has become a stellar career.