Guy Harwood at 80: a trip down memory lane with the trainer of Dancing Brave

Among diners at the Black Horse in Amberley this evening, only those acquainted with Guy Harwood will know that the man quietly celebrating his 80th birthday was one of the most successful trainers of his era.

Harwood is not into nostalgia. He was raised outside racing's parish and returned to the wider world on his retirement in the mid-1990s. He now presides over the eponymous West Sussex car dealership established by his father in 1931. Demands on his time make him an infrequent visitor to the racetrack, where his horses ran riot throughout the 1980s.

And what a decade it was. It opened with Harwood saddling his first Group 1 winner when Recitation landed the 1980 Grand Criterium (now Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere). Recitation returned to France the following year to win the Poule d'Essai des Poulains one week before To-Agori-Mou claimed the 2,000 Guineas before further triumphs in the St James's Palace Stakes and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.