The rise and fall and rise again of the Valley of the Racehorse

Much had happened in Lambourn before John Francome arrived there on the back of a scooter in 1969.

The town’s famous chalk downs had been formed 100 million years earlier in the Upper Cretaceous period; races had been run there since the 18th century and the Victorian railway that transformed the town into Britain’s second biggest hub of the Turf had already come and gone, leaving behind it a thriving training centre.

All that was maybe a little too historic for a rough-around-the-edges 16-year-old from Swindon, but as he walked through the gates of Uplands Stables for the first time, he might have been expected to feel at least a frisson of awe at the mighty feats that had been performed there, not least by its current master, the great Fred Winter.