Nicky Henderson: ‘It’s a nightmare to maintain - it has to be chock-a-block to make it pay, it wouldn’t work half full’

Constitution Hill (Matty Gill) leads second lot down the hill at Seven BarrowsCredit: Edward Whitaker

A rather soggy Cheltenham Festival was somewhat appropriate following one of the wettest winters in living memory.

Indeed, visiting Seven Barrows in the build-up to the meeting – shortly before that fateful day of Constitution Hill's gallop at Kempton and all the horrors that followed for Nicky Henderson – the road from Lambourn is flooded and there is now a small lake alongside the driveway, where previously there was just grass. The driveway is under water as well, and although the gulls are bobbing away merrily, the trainer is having to fend off irreverent text messages from his jockeys suggesting a spot of cold-water swimming would do him the world of good.