Ask the expert

He may, unusually, have a Cambridge economics degree but nobody in racing looks the part better than John Gosden. The panama or brown trilby according to the weather. The upright physical presence of a man you could easily imagine as a battalion commander. The crinkle of experience about eyes which have studied the racing scene from the inside at his father Towser’s Lewes yard, in Caracas, Venezuela, on America’s West Coast and at Manton. The calm confidence exuding from the man who learnt his trade at the feet of masters like Vincent O’Brien at Ballydoyle and Noel Murless in Newmarket, which is once again Gosden’s home base.

Listen to John Gosden on the racecourse or read him in the sporting press and he makes more sense than anybody talking about the problems of a prize-money structure which virtually forces owners to go abroad with horses which show more than average talent.