The UK experienced its warmest summer since 1976 this year, but few were hotter than the Barbury horses, who clocked up 33 winners on the Flat, which is 10 more than Alan’s previous best on the level.

Alan is hopeful he might have an even bigger and stronger squad for the Flat next year – “plenty of the two-year-olds are now handicapped and they’ll strengthen up through the winter” – but now his focus is very much on the jumpers and if November is any criterion exciting times lie ahead for the coming months.

Forget the fact that his 58 winners in what was a miserably wet 2017-18 campaign was his lowest for 14 years, because as Alan points out “we were way down on our number of runners with the ground being brutal through the winter, and it didn’t dry out in the spring either.”

He can take heart from the fact that in 2008, which was Alan’s previous best on the Flat, he carried over his excellent form to the jumps season, finishing with a personal high of 136 winners that winter, so the omens are looking good.

We’ll have to do without Elgin, who is out for the season, and Yanworth, who will not reappear until well into the New Year at best, but the classy Sceau Royal – “as quick a jumper as I’ve trained” –  heads an exciting team, full of untapped potential, so optimism is sky-high throughout the yard.