And the Fairy Godmother? Step forward Gill Richardson, who bred the filly and must have waved a magic wand at her birth to bestow the gifts our heroine owns as an athlete.So settle down and listen to the story. This afternoon the girl from below stairs takes on 16 rivals in the 191st 1,000 Guineas, and despite her extraordinarily humble origins, she can prove herself a true princess.
There are no ugly sisters in this romance, and the tryst with the handsome prince must wait for next year. Majestic Desert, the Cinder-ella filly, is off to the ball at Newmarket. It will mean nothing unless I do the next job as well as possible.”And with that, he returns to the towpath to view his athletes’ next sessions.

Time to get on his bike, the traditional rowing coach’s conveyance? “No, my car,” he says, as he walks to his BMW, fervently hoping, no doubt, that well before Athens he will have charge of a settled, in-form crew.For the moment, you advise him, the chorus of a popular song of his adopted nation seems highly appropriate: “Sit down, sit down; you’re rocking the boat.”. Today is the day that a fairytale just might come true. As he puts it: “When I sit down with the guys to eat, I don’t get golden spoons. There’s no point me telling people, ‘I’m great, because I’ve coached athletes to 14 gold medals’. In the same way, if we fail, everybody’s head is on the line.”That’s why Grobler regards himself as only as good as his oarsmen’s next medal. We make decisions as a team, with the other coaches and crew members involved If we win a gold medal, it is not just my gold medal It is our gold medal as a team.

No, he had to demonstrate to the team that he earned his seat. It’s the same situation with Matthew this time.”The team ethic is crucial to Grobler. He expects oarsmen who fail to be selected to form a particular crew to be highly disappointed; he understands that they may express their displeasure publicly, just so long as it does not affect the squad’s morale “We all have to work for the team,” he says “This is not a one-man show of J?n Grobler. “Even by 2002, we were still thinking, ‘Should he be in the eight, or not?’, never mind the four,” recalls Grobler “So he’s made a massive step physically and mentally. You can’t hold him back.”You have to be open-minded to young athletes. Since I have arrived, I’ve always tried to create a performance-based system.

It’s not an exclusive club in which nobody from outside can get in It’s not all about heroes. They used to say, ‘Oh, Steve Redgrave, he must be in that boat’. At last month’s British rowing trials at Hazewinkel in Belgium, the men’s pair race was won by Alex Partridge and Andy Hodge (Pinsent had viral tonsilitis, so he and Cracknell did not contest the pair), both of whom were from the eight. Partridge, a 23-year-old, was then called into the four at the expense of West. Cracknell has a stress fracture of a rib and will be replaced temporarily by Ed Coode.It was only three years ago that Partridge first appeared in the British squad. Even now, the British four will have yet another different line-up at the season’s first international test, the World Cup at Poznan, Poland, next weekend.