Dina's back at top table

As if to prove the Cheltenham Festival win was no fluke, two weeks later Smith sent out Prince Bless to take the big fouryearold hurdle at the Grand National meeting and that hit a few bookies where it hurts - in their satchels. Other good winners, including Janus and Cut A Dash, followed and these helped etch her name in punters' notebooks.

Smith had been established as a trainer by London bookmaker Tony Hayward, who urged her to take out a license in 1976 and settle at a yard near Fontwell Racecourse. But she later moved from Sussex to a stable close to Lambourn, where things did not work out well. The recession came and so did a virus, so she and her husband, Al, decided to sell-up.

She added: "We had too many horses and two small kids, so it was difficult. Yet we did sell at just the right time and moved back to Sussex."

A self-imposed, 12-year exile from training followed, which ended two summers ago when Hayward, part-owner of Ibal, transferred the horse to her from Paul Nicholls's stable. That encouraged Smith to come back to the profession.

Since Ibal's Imperial Cup victory he has been a bit unlucky, coming up against Martin Pipe's smart Mr Cool at Newton Abbot on his chasing debut, then disappointing at Chepstow before running at Ascot where the going was not to his liking.

His trainer now reckons that very heavy ground is probably what he needs.

Smith's mini-string of eight is small but select and she has shown what she can achieve when laying a horse out for a race.

She has a couple four-year-olds worth watching in Photographer - who won a Beverley maiden for Sir Michael Stoute last June by seven lengths - and Mister Putt, formerly with Jamie Osborne.

Mister Putt was placed at Goodwood and Leicester during his last Flat campaign and Smith said: "He needs a bit of time, but finished fourth at Fontwell not long ago and probably wants a bit more than two miles now."

Recent Towcester winner General and Midy's Risk, who are both five-year-olds, should also be noted.

During the freezing weather, Smith has kept her horses on the move, boxing them down to the beach at Climping 10 miles away.

She said: "We only do that when we are desperate, and with the frost we certainly were. We're right under the Sussex Downs so there is usually plenty of hill work available. We have always been a small outfit with never more than about 16 horses at the most and we work hard, but I'd like someone to give me £2 million so I could sort out a place I really want!"

Smith and her husband share the work and the worry with help from elder daughter, Jeanie, 18, who is in a gap year before going to university in the autumn.

Suzie, the 'baby' of the family at 14, is not so keen on horses.

Bashful Smith is still not sure why she's retained with such affection by the racing public. "I suppose it might be that when I started out there were not so many female trainers around," she said, omitting to add there were not many with big-race successes under their belts either.

Bury, a tiny village nestling in a valley at the bottom of a one-in-something hill, was once the home of author John Galsworthy, writer of the famous Forsyte Saga. His 1931 novel, Maid in Waiting, could be prophetic. Dina Smith waited some time to make her comeback and we will be hearing a lot more of her - and that will upset her no end!