It also proved to be one of the final acts in the season, because the Covid-19 pandemic brought all racing to a stop in March, with the sport suspended all the way through to early June ensuring that year's Punchestown Festival was cancelled. Willie Mullins' charge inflicted a second narrow defeat on a David Christie runner when beating Vaucelet in the Punchestown Champion Hunter Chase. The book details every aspect of the subject, and is of particular value, for it is the only one of its kindd published for many years.

Instead, the temptation of another Cheltenham Foxhunter Chase was taken, and while Spartan Missile gave Diana a fine ride and carried her into sixth place behind the Alan Hill-ridden Elmboy he finished lame. At Cheltenham he beat Honourable Man (Geordie Dun) and Sun Lion (Robert Waley-Cohen) by 12l and 20l in a time only five seconds slower than it took Little Owl to defeat legends Night Nurse and Silver Buck in the Gold Cup, while at Aintree Grittar was in a different league, cantering home by 20 lengths and one and a half lengths from Sydney Quinn (Paul Webber) and Flexibility (Martin Bosley). After finishing second at the Cheltenham Festival he came out on top in a thrilling tussle to the line with the similarly progressive hunter Vaucelet. During three months in hospital he was told that playing golf or riding would help strengthen his legs. It was a case of friends reunited at Haydock on Saturday as Cousin Pascal was cheered to victory by the bride and groom of the wedding he attended a few months ago.

Thorne's son, Nigel, was a talented amateur who had ridden Polaris Missile in the 1968 Grand National but died in a car accident soon after, while his daughters, Jane and Diana, were competent amateurs who rode Spartan Missile in races and competed at the highest level in eventing. One he bought was noticed by someone who said, 'He's too good just to hack, he should go racing', and Frank started to dabble. As a five-year-old Spartan Missile's education continued and he was twice pulled up before enormous ability overcame his youth, size and inexperience. A hunter usually goes out and shoots animals, while a trapper sets traps, then comes back later to see if any animals got caught in them. The Whitbread second place was to embellish the season, which otherwise ended on low notes with a fall and unseat when favourite for two hunters' chases at Cheltenham and a second place at Stratford when Spartan Missile attempted to give 17lb to talented Bright Chance who was winning his seventh race of the season.

Diana, who became the first woman to win a British Jump race under Rules against men – February 7, 1976, when winning a hunters' chase at Stratford on Ben Ruler – was second at Badminton and Burghley on The Kingmaker and long-listed for the British Olympic team. At that time it was published by IPC Magazines Ltd and compiled and edited by the astute Iain Mackenzie and David Phillips. Do you have any recollections or fond memories of any of the 'Greats' (Double Silk, Baby Run, Teaplanter, Spartan Missile, Cavalero and Grittar) featured so far? The brother was difficult – I took him to Leicester races one day, he got loose in the paddock, escaped through a door in the [adjacent] wall and headed into the city. Cousin Pascal, trained in Cheshire by Joe O'Shea, has been a revelation for Clifton since being bought cheaply by the Shropshire farmer at the end of 2020.

Ruled out of the big English Festivals because of their eligibility rules, their spring prizes remained at home, as Pacha Du Polder won the first of his two Cheltenham Foxhunters crowns, whilst Dineur ensured Mickey Bowen was the latest of his siblings to enjoy big race success. We got him home and gave him a week, but then asked my uncle, Peter Thorne, who was a vet, to take a look, and he said there was no hope. Following that superb effort Spartan Missile ran at Ascot and broke down, which meant he missed the 1982 season when a ten-year-old, and in the March of that year John Thorne died following a fall at Mollington.