‘There will always be next year,’ the judge had said with an irritating smile.

But one didn’t just enter a horse in the Foxhunters, one had to qualify by winning other races, and this was the first time I had managed to do so in ten years of trying. Next year both horse and rider would be another year older and neither of us was in the first flush of youth. There might never be another chance for us together.

I looked at my watch. The race was due off in half an hour. My horse would still run, of course, but there would be another jockey on board and I hated the thought of it. I had played out the race so often in my head and now someone else would be taking my place. I should be in the Cheltenham changing room right now, pulling on the lightweight racing breeches and the brightly coloured silks, not sat here in pinstripe suit, gown and wig, far from the cheering crowd, in depression rather than anticipation.

‘Mr Mason,’ repeated the judge, bringing me back from my daydreaming. ‘I asked you if the defence wishes to say anything before sentence.’

‘No, Your Honour,’ I said, half standing and then returning to my seat. As far as I could see there were no mitigating circumstances that I wanted to bring to the court’s attention. I couldn’t claim the young man was the product of a deprived or broken background, nor could I try to excuse his behaviour by reference to some past abuse. In fact quite the reverse was true. His parents were loving both of him and of each other, and he had been educated at one of the country’s leading private schools, or at least he had until he was seventeen, when he had been expelled for bullying the younger boys and then threatening the headmaster with a broken bottle while being reprimanded for it.