Graham Wylie was a latecomer to racing, but his early purchases proved exceptionally lucrative, with Lord Transcend, who was named after his wife’s hair and beauty business, winning five of his first six starts and thereby igniting a love affair with the sport which shows no sign of waning, for all the disqualification of Wylie’s original trainer, Howard Johnson, threatened to sour things.

Wylie is the son of a coal miner, and his initial interest in the sport was watching how his dad’s £1 treble got on in front of the telly on a Saturday afternoon. That interest lay dormant as the young Wylie applied himself to a computer science and statistics degree at Newcastle University which directly led to him setting up a software firm called Sage.

The Sage group grew into a behemoth of its type, and when its co-founder retired in 2003, he netted close to £200m for his 20-or-so years of graft, making him (according to a local newspaper) the joint seventh richest person in the northeast of England. He shares that spot with Sting, apparently.

Retirement for Wylie coincided with his marriage to Andrea, who shares her husband’s passion for racing, and with a couple of early exceptions, the horses run in both their names. 2005 was an annus mirabilis for the couple, with Arcalis, No Refuge and Inglis Drever all winning at the Festival, which more than made up for the disappointment of the last-named getting beaten when hotly fancied the previous year.

Inglis Drever went on to become one of the most popular staying hurdlers of all time, winning the World Hurdle three times, on each occasion pulling victory from the jaws of defeat. Everybody loves a trier, they say, and while the likes of Big Buck’s and Thistlecrack will rate higher in terms of racecourse performance, the public don’t warm as much to ratings as they do to fighting spirit, and Inglis Drever had it in abundance.

When Howard Johnson picked up a four-year ban for running a horse which had had a palmar neurectomy, there were fears that Graham, who was a vocal supporter of his trainer, would sell his horses, but that was never a consideration, the owner claims, and having consulted Johnson, he split his string between Paul Nicholls and Willie Mullins.

Nicholls did wonders to rekindle the enthusiasm of the often recalcitrant Tidal Bay, and Solar Impulse gave the pairing their first Festival win when landing the Grand Annual last year, but it’s Mullins who has enjoyed the lion’s share of success in the beige and black halved colours, training the winners of 22 Grade 1 contests for Wylie compared to just one for the Master of Ditcheat.

Willie’s haul includes three at Cheltenham in March, although it ought to have been more, as Boston Bob held a definite advantage when falling at the last in the 2013 RSA Chase, and many considered On His Own unfortunate not to get the 2014 Gold Cup in the stewards’ room when hampered by the winner, Lord Windermere.

In adversity a man shows his true colours, however, and Wylie took defeat on the chin, even suggesting he would have been mortified to win the Gold Cup in such fashion.

He was similarly sanguine about the falls of Boston Bob and Briar Hill, and this adopted Geordie may trail Mike Ashley in terms of wealth, but he scores much more highly on the likability chart.