THE first thing to say is that the crowd is noticeably down in the betting ring. You can feel it walking around, it’s not as busy as normal.

We started very well, winning big on the first two races. Shishkin (drifted to 6/1) was a good result for us. Our two biggest losers in the book were Abacadabras and Chantry House, and there was strong each-way money for Elixir D’Ainay.