Cup hero Coneygree making giant strides on the comeback trail

Coneygree has finished his work for the morning. He has just devoured a mile and a half of unforgiving sand gallop with the relentless, unstoppable energy of a steam train and is enjoying a docile pick of grass at the top of the gallop when he hears the horsebox that has been dispatched to take him home.

In the blink of a big brown eye, any pretence that Sara Bradstock is in charge of the situation shrivels in the wintry cold. Where once she was holding the 17.2 hands of steeplechasing brawn on a loose rein in a spirit of mutual respect, very quickly she finds herself heading towards the wagon whether she likes it or not, with a jolt, a lurch and one arm suddenly several inches longer than the other.

There are very few people in this world either brave enough or foolish enough to pick a fight with Sara - whose reputation for what we might call forthrightness luckily precedes her - but Coneygree is one of them.