DR WHO IS NOW AMONG THE BEST OF HIS TRADE

Nick Townsend talks to doctor-trainer extraordinary, Richard Newman

- Nick Townsend

That moment - a touch before 4.30 on 5 April 2014 – will, surely, forever be seared into his memory. But if Dr Richard Newland ever needs to reassure himself that his 25-1 shot Pineau De Re’s mastery of Aintree’s Grand National fences, and the celebrations that ensued as he was hoisted aloft by his nephew Rupert and his companions was indeed reality and not fantasy, he only has to glance at a wall of his home at his Worcestershire stables.

It’s there in all its glory. Not a Bansky, maybe. But a unique piece of wall-art.

He recalls: “The day after the National, I went into a service station and bought all the newspapers with all the photos and reports. My wife (Laura) very cleverly turned all the cuttings into wallpaper.

Newland, 57 this month, and the father of three daughters, is rightly unashamedly proud of his feat and adds: “I’ll be quite honest with you, I do enjoy looking at it sometimes. It was a magical time, an amazing day.”

Yet, the stories within those newspaper cuttings suggested that a character who had run GP surgeries until the previous year, and was chief executive of CHS Healthcare, a business which helps the NHS discharge patients, was content for training to remain a hobby. At the time, he stabled 12 horses; his patrons primarily family and friends.

Yet, even as he protested that he trained horses “just for the fun of it”, and “I have no real plans to change because if I had more than 12 horses I wouldn’t really be able to cope” many will have harboured their doubts – scepticism that was more than justified by what confronts you today.