Duffield just gets better and better

However, he is ruled out of partnering the probable Cambridgeshire Handicap favourite Alphaeus for the same handler, the day before.

Duffield says: "I was so looking forward to the Alphaeus ride, which has now been taken by Seb Sanders, but you win some and you lose some. I am delighted that I can go to France, though, for Danehurst, whom I rate very highly. She is quick enough and would handle soft ground all right.

"She ran a fine race in a Listed event at Chester in July but had a bit of a setback after that when she was periodically lame. We have had a bone scan done on her, which didn't find anything, and she is firing on all cylinders now."

Duffield's biggest days in the sport have seen him ride an Oaks-St Leger double on User Friendly back in 1992 and subsequently back-to-back victories on Sir Mark's Alborada in the Champion Stakes.

He started his long career at Newmarket with Jack Waugh.

Duffield recalls: "Mr Waugh was a great disciplinarian. He would make Sir Mark look like a nun. I do know that if it had not been for him I wouldn't be where I am today."

Prescott naturally prizes his main rider and says: "I would still not have any jockey from the past 150 years ahead of George. Tactically he is better than he was - it is no good getting old if you don't get cunning. His heart has always been at the winning post and he has never needed geeing up."

Duffield has had some close shaves in his time, none perhaps more than when he flew to York races with Lester Piggott, Philip Robinson and Michael Hills. A jet fighter came up underneath the light aircraft and missed its nose by inches. The force of the jet's slipstream rocked the smaller aircraft and it had to make an emergency landing.

Duffield takes up the story: "I was so intent on getting to the course to ride User Friendly in the Yorkshire Oaks, that I didn't really take in how lucky we had been. It wasn't until I had won on her that Lester came across to me in the weighing-room and muttered 'we should be dead'."

There looks to be another plum that Duffield can pick to end the season on a winning note. Prescott's Alleluia appears to be 'thrown in' at the weights for the Cesarewitch at Headquarters on 20 October. The filly romped away with the Doncaster Cup last time out and Duffield observes: "People are saying that she must be nailed on for it. But when they say that, they get beat. I've been around long enough to know that!"