'It's a fascinating, historic place to train - but in this modern era you'd have to be careful it didn't break you'

The problem with writing about Manton is knowing where to start. How can you do justice to a place so old, so vast, so famous, so green? How can you begin to tell the story of a historic patch of England that has been home to racing greats both equine and human, a sporting base whose history is filled with tales of joy and despair, success and skulduggery? Perhaps the sensible move is to approach the task with boots on the feet, eyes wide open and the sound of horses approaching in the distance. Do that and nothing really has changed.

That said, an awful lot of grass has grown since Alec Taylor began laying the foundations of a brand new training establishment on the Marlborough Downs in the late 1860s. The vision was his; the money came from Scottish coal magnate William Stuart Stirling-Crawfurd. Taylor created the elegant Manton House Yard, whose boxes housed an abundance of Classic winners across an eight-decade period when Manton was run by Taylor ('Old Alec'), his son 'Young Alec' and then the latter's long-time right-hand man Joe Lawson. 

Their eventful lives are told by the late Paul Mathieu in the sublime The Masters of Manton, which also chronicles the achievements of George Todd, a trainer famed for his brilliance with elderly stayers such as Trelawny, a public favourite and four-time Royal Ascot winner in the early 1960s. The book finished with Todd. Manton did not, although there have been times when its future appeared vulnerable. Michael Dickinson, Barry Hills, Peter Chapple-Hyam and John Gosden have been among its most celebrated modern masters, although only Gosden departed how he wanted, in the way he wanted and at the time he wanted. That should not necessarily come as a surprise. Manton has never been boring. It has always been beautiful.