AFTER his Chepstow Welsh National triumph Earth Summit returned to the track in January, 1998. Our National dream was still alive, but he ran down the field at Haydock in the Peter Marsh Chase.

In late January, we held the weights’ lunch, and there seemed to be a big degree of confidence building. He was around the 25/1 mark, but with a listless fifth of 15 in the Greenalls Grand National Trial, the very race that crippled him in 1996, our confidence, if you could call it that, took a bit of a knock.