Right for Alexanders

in race planning and administration.

Clare, 22, has left the yard for now and is gaining experience as pupil assistant at champion trainer Nicky Henderson’s yard at Lambourne. The youngest member of the family, Johnny only has a minimal interest in racing and is studying at Durham University.

Horses and owners make up the rest of the jigsaw at Kinneston and Nick has had some real highlights in his career so far. One of his best days was winning two races at Ayr with two home-bred horses ridden by Kit and Lucy respectively, making it a real family occasion.

Nick’s father Cyril trained his own horses and the whole family were thrilled when the Kinneston-trained Jet Master won the Cyril Alexander Memorial Race at Kelso in 2015 followed in March 2017 by the home-bred Clan Legend, which goes back to Cyril’s breeding lines and has won eight out of his first 14 races.

Training north of the border has its challenges, not least the weather. It involves hours of travelling to meetings in the south and some of the team spend a lot of time on the road, while the rest look after and exercise the horses.

“However the advantage of training in Scotland is that there is less poaching of staff and owners, allowing good relationships to build.

Nick said: “Communication is important and we send all our owners an email every week letting them know how their horses are and the racing plans. I am also responsible for keeping the website, Facebook and Twitter up to date so everyone knows what is going on.”

With three strings of horses going out every day plus the work involved looking after them, administration and race meetings, there is never a dull moment but Nick does not regret his decision to turn his hobby into a business.

I have a great team of young people here who work so hard