'Legacy is nothing, it's bollocks, nobody will remember me in decades to come' - inside the mind of Sir Mark Prescott

Laid out on a tray in the kitchen are a teapot, two dainty cups with saucers and tempting slices of chocolate cake. Sir Mark Prescott carries the tray into the sitting room of his home at Heath House Stables, settles into a chair and begins to talk. Rest assured, he is in spectacular form.

Helpfully, he has spent time considering the brief. The purpose of the conversation is to go inside the mind of a trainer whose triumph with Alpinista in last year's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe brought joy to so many. Prescott has sat down in front of countless voice recorders but this latest brief demands of him deep introspection. Not surprisingly, he proves to be the perfect subject, his words coming laden with insight, sincerity, laughter and tears.

Prior to the record button being pressed there had been chat about delays on the M25, talk of a recent weekend trip to watch bullfights and a wander down memory lane as Prescott told stories about his late friend Graham Rock, the Racing Post's founding editor and owner of Pasternak, who most famously landed a colossal gamble in the 1997 Cambridgeshire. That sort of bookie-bashing handicap coup is among the things synonymous with a 75-year-old who has been training from his treasured Newmarket base since taking over from mentor Jack Waugh more than half a century ago. Now, however, he is partly defined by what happened in Paris last October.