Flower power turns a pop icon to race game

"It was fantastic," Lickert says. "We went everywhere, and I remember a wonderful trip to America where we met Elvis and stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Ringo had a bungalow in the grounds and I shared another with Perry Como. Also there were Liz Taylor, Richard Burton and Edward G Robinson. For a 21-year-old it was like, wow!

"When we returned to London, Ringo was 'phoned by Frank Zappa, of The Mothers of Invention, to ask him to be in a film Zappa was directing called Two Hundred Motels. Soon after filming started at Pinewood Studios, Zappa's bass guitarist walked out and they had the brilliant idea of replacing him with Wilfred (Steptoe) Brambell, miming to a dubbing by the Jimi Hendrix player Noel Redding. "But Wilfred couldn't stand all the swearing in the script and somehow I found myself in the film, from which a double album came," Lickert says. "It was possibly the worst film ever made, but the album sold well to the thousands of Zappa freaks."

Lickert later contracted infectious hepatitis and could not go on a tour with the Mothers. After recovering he joined CBS Records working in promotion from where he gravitated to a hunting stables at Stow-on-the-Wold and fell in love with horse racing. Later, he dabbled in music publishing and then bought a betting shop in the Midlands. "I was the world's worst bookie, and with only one shop, if you get hit with one horse, you get hit," he says.

So he went back to London and met a young lady who was studying to be a barrister at dinner one night. Her name was Anne and they later married and now have two daughters, Hannah, 14, and Miranda, 11.

Anne urged him to train to be a lawyer and, taking up the challenge, he went to the South Bank Polytechnic for three years, getting his Law degree and moved on to the Council of Legal Education.

He was called to the bar in 1986 and now prosecutes mainly for HM Customs & Excise. His biggest case, concerning bootlegging, and codenamed 'Operation Envy' took three years, so he named his first horse Operation Envy. "Unfortunately, Operation Envy broke a bone in his knee at Lingfield last year," Lickert says. "It was either shoot him or operate and retire him. I had the operation done and he is now enjoying a lovely life at Mark Flower's."

Lickert's two remaining horses are Dihatjum, a four-year-old who was second at Sandown a month ago at 20-1, and Jevington Grey, who ran without distinction at Lingfield last week but was found to be coughing.

"Racing fascinates me," he says. "Something is always going on and you meet so many interesting people. It's a bit like my life really!"