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"Good horses plot their own path but the others are an intellectual challenge"

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NEWMARKET, 5.45am.

Craven House Stables are humming with purpose on a clear May morning. Three horse walkers are whirring, and lads dart in and out of stables with tack slung over their arms, until a call of "let's go, and 25 glossy horses file out to a large sand ring in the middle of the yard.

George Boughey, in black hoodie, shorts and trainers, is in the centre of a five-man powwow watching and discussing the string as they walk, then trot round. One is a vet, who comes to the yard every morning to assess how the horses are moving.

"All the horses have a history, and this way we know what their baseline is if anything comes up," George explains.

"It's about horse welfare, but also damage limitation, because it's gutting to have to ring an owner to tell them their horse is being scratched from a race." Satisfied with the wellbeing of this first lot, George sends them up to Newmarket racecourse for today's piece of work on the Watered Gallop. There's one three-year-old colt by Magna Grecia who has required a bit of mollycoddling to understand what training's all about. George sends his pupil assistant Harry Myddleton to accompany the string on foot to make sure the newcomer plays ball.

"He's getting there," says George. "He's just learning the game and he's only worked twice in his life because he hasn't been ready for it." George may have enjoyed a rapid rise up the training ranks in his six-year career, with three Group One winners already on the board, but it's not all about the Cachets and Believings. Like the quirky Magna Grecia colt, every individual matters, and George relishes the challenge of making a lowly handicapper the best it can be as much as the Classic contestants.

He points to It's Tim, a slight chestnut four-year-old: "I didn't think he was any good, but he's now won four races on the spin by over 30 lengths in total. He's improving and improving and I take a lot of satisfaction from that."