Foxglove

Under their saddles and over their loins lie good woollen blankets, gold-coloured, striped with navy and red in the traditional pattern.

The horses sidle and two-step and tap-dance their way along the lane, tails blowing against their hocks, heads tossing, delicate mouths feeling for their length of rein. The riders, muffled on top and lean below, sit there as if nothing is happening: by their standards, nothing is.

The horses are a whisker away from being race-fit, for you cannot keep any athlete, human or animal, at complete fitness for long without doing damage, and therefore their fitness is only brought to peak for a particular race.

Some horses can get bad-tempered when they are ready to race; whatever their normal character is, being so fit tends to make them more reactive. They are, after all, a species that survives by running away, and Thoroughbreds above all breeds of horse have "gallop" as default mode.

The riders are taciturn but miss nothing, feeling how their horses feel, seeing what the horses see, keeping ahead of the game. As one of my trainer friends once said to me: "A Thoroughbred has done it and forgotten about it while another horse is still contemplating it".

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette March 11