The frosty start that turned into a Classic racing romance

The runes were not auspicious when a young Ian Mongan and Miss L Sheen first made each other’s acquaintance some 20 years ago. The pair were pitched against each other on the track and unlikely to have been best pals, but their feelings for each other went some way beyond sporting rivalry.

“She hated me,” says Ian with a satisfied grin. “We used to ride as amateurs together and I was winning everything, and she hated that.”

“I thought he was an arrogant git,” confirms Laura, although her memory of events varies markedly from her husband’s, who appears to have forgotten the entry in the form book that records his wife’s first win of five, as a slight 16-year-old on Hattaafeh at Lingfield on January 11, 1997, when Ian Mongan (7) was tailed-off last on Little Luke. “He really hated me then.”