CHARLES REMAINED AT my place for the rest of the day, and we spent the afternoon in my sitting room watching the racing from Ayr on the television.

‘Which is the jockey you want me to watch?’ he asked.

‘Jimmy Shilstone. He rides a horse called Lateral Flow Test in the second and another called Wit Of Cricket in the fifth.’

‘And you think he might be stopping them?’

‘I don’t know. I just want to wait and see. Neither of the horses is trained by Simon Paulson.’

‘Who then?’

‘Two different trainers, both from Scotland.’

Ayr is the largest of the five racecourses north of the border and, in my career, I had ridden there quite a few times, notably in five Scottish Grand Nationals, one of which I had won.

Lying just a mile from the sea, close to the outer reaches of the Firth of Clyde, the course has well-draining sandy soil providing excellent underfoot conditions throughout the year for both jump and flat racing. Its oval track is about a mile and a half round with slight undulations along the back, a downhill turn into the home straight, and a gentle rise from there to the winning post.

The second race on today’s card was a three-mile novice hurdle, although, at this late stage in the jumping season, with only four more weeks to go, the ‘novices’ in this race were all pretty experienced, with one of them having run as many as seven times over hurdles prior to today.

Jimmy Shilstone’s mount was the second favourite at four-to-one, and he jumped off in the middle of the pack as the starter dropped his flag.

With two complete circuits of the course to run, and twelve flights of hurdles to negotiate, the early pace was steady, with the field of eight closely bunched as they raced down the back for the first time. Only when they had completed the first loop did the race begin in earnest. Jimmy took his mount to the front as they swung downhill into the home straight for the final time, and he jumped clear over the final three obstacles, was never headed and won by two lengths.

‘Well, he obviously didn’t stop that one,’ Charles said.

He certainly hadn’t, and he had ridden a flawless race, judging both the pace and the strides of the horse into the hurdles to perfection. It was in striking contrast to the two races he had ridden at Catterick earlier in the week.

‘Not what you were looking for then?’ Charles said.

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘But it did show he can do it properly if he wants to.’