Another jumps season behind us, and though the heaviest one-day fall of snow at the start of February meant we were briefly unable to get horses out of the yard, we got off lightly compared with 10 or 15 years ago when we regularly went almost a month without any jumping action.

It has been a frustrating winter, but, despite missing out at the Cheltenham Festival, The Glancing Queen looked a potential star when winning the Aintree bumper and we did manage eight Graded or Listed winners.

As I feared, our novices were not a vintage bunch, but you play the cards that you are dealt and I always judge our success by getting £1m prize money in the bag, which we achieved with more than two weeks of the season left.

We are undergoing a good spring clean and quite a few horses will be off to the sales to make way for new recruits, but meanwhile we can focus on another lucrative summer on the Flat.

We had our best-ever Flat season last year, and, hopefully, 2019 might be even better.

With a team of more than 50 horses primed for the level, I am looking forward to plenty of summer winners and more of the same weather as last year, and, though I’ll always be looked upon as a jumps trainer, the split is narrowing and I think we’ve got the balance about right between the two codes.

And with Beringer having got us off to a flying start, following up his excellent Lincoln third with a win at the Newmarket Craven meeting, not to mention a brilliant victory for Chatez in the Newbury Spring Cup and another early HQ celebration with the improving Aweedram, hopes are high that the future is bright at Barbury.

ALAN KING