'I think we'll end up with fewer trainers than we've had for a long time'

For many of us, Covid-19 has proved to be an obstacle so large and impassable that we can barely see the horizon, let alone what's on it and certainly not what's over it. The present for the working man is full of worry, not least because the future is so unfathomable.

For those in racing, with its never-ending cycle of young horses and old horses, yearling sales and retirements, invoices and payments, the milestones along the way are plain but the road is potholed and leads to a future that promises little and threatens much.

We inhabit a landscape that is now one part sport to four parts industry and, while we could probably live without sport for a few more months, most of us couldn't survive without the business of racing; we depend on it for a living, which is why the 'not knowing' is such a concern. There are no answers, certainly not from scientists or politicians, so what do trainers, those hardy souls at the hub of the racing cycle, think of our chances of bouncing back any time soon, of our hopes of weathering the storm and looking back on it in a year or two's time and breathing a sigh of relief?