The racing community is actually very closed, with everyone knowing everybody else, generation on generation, with outsiders rarely admitted. Those warned off are even banned from speaking with other licensed members of their own family, and may be forced to move out of their own homes.

Such sanctions are purposefully extreme, to act as a deterrent.

If he was warned off, Simon would not only have to retire from training, he would have to retire from all his friendships, to say nothing of having to leave his house.

‘Maybe there’s another way,’ I said, throwing him a lifeline. ‘But you will need to help me.’ He didn’t look very happy at that prospect. ‘And to start with, you must tell me how you got into this godawful mess in the first place.’

He took a little more persuading but, eventually, the whole sorry saga was laid bare.

‘My wife, Jackie, apart from always nagging me about my drinking and eating habits, she also did all the stable books—you know, staff salaries, paying bills, owners’ invoices, that sort of stuff. That’s how she met the accountant she’s run off with. Anyway, after she left, everything went a bit pear-shaped on that front. Still is, if I’m honest. I’ve been trying to sort out the mess but … it seems beyond me sometimes. See, I’m quite good with horses but less so with figures.’

I looked again at the piles of paper on the sofa, some of which I could see were unpaid utility bills with FINAL REMINDER stamped on them in red.

‘My secretary took on doing the payroll and paying some of our essential suppliers so we didn’t get caught out without staff, food, or bedding, but sending out and chasing the owners’ invoices sort of fell between the stools.’

‘So you basically ran out of money?’ I asked.

‘Big time. Suddenly last summer I had my bank manager on the blower threatening to shut me down at once and foreclose on the house.’

‘So what happened next?’

‘I got offered a loan, just to pay off some of the urgent stuff like the bank mortgage payment and the salaries, to tide me over until I received what was owing to me from my owners. I mean, it wasn’t as if I didn’t have the funds coming in eventually. I wasn’t insolvent or anything. In fact, I made a decent profit last year, best in a long time, mostly thanks to Regal Monarch.’

But cash was still the king. Without sufficient cash in the bank you can’t pay your staff and your business will fold overnight as they desert you. And Simon’s wouldn’t have been the first profitable business to go bust from a lack of cash flow, far from it.

‘I assume this loan didn’t come from your bank.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It didn’t.’