Harry Redknapp walks into the room alongside Ben Pauling. The team that took the sport back to the front pages of the newspapers on Boxing Day are on media duty ahead of the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup.
The trainer makes his highest-profile owner a quick cup of instant coffee as the media gather around a table, mobile phones set on record.
“Bloody hell, Ben – have you ever heard of coffee machines?” asks Redknapp as the paper cup lands in his hand.
The questions are going to get easier for Pauling from here on in.
He reaches down to take a Mini Egg from a bowl on the table in front of him.
"Go then – off you go," he says.
And the talk is of The Jukebox Man, of that Kempton race and finish, of the euphoria afterwards and the other paths such a brave and high-quality performance have opened up.
A tilt at the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup as one of the market leaders, for example.
“The King George was obviously an exceptional day but out the back of that Harry and I had already discussed it for a long time that if we were lucky enough to run well at Kempton, we’d probably have to have a look at the Gold Cup," Pauling says.
“So that’s what we’ve done. He’s come out of the King George very well, actually better than I ever expected. Had I wanted, I could probably have put a Denman Chase in there or something, but I don’t think we needed that.
“We know him very well, know when he’s right and what he needs to be doing to be absolutely cherry-ripe. And so having a horse of his calibre in the form he seems to be in at the moment, going into a Gold Cup, is exceptionally exciting for me, Soph, the whole team here, but to be doing it with a man like Harry who not only is a bit of a national treasure but we’ve had a great relationship with for the last seven or eight years now, is a special thing for all of us.
“I just hope we can get him there in the form he can be in, because if he is he’s going to give us all one hell of a day and a good opportunity to pick up the big one."
