Lalor, joint favourite for Tuesday's Arkle Trophy Novices' Chase at Cheltenham, is a bit of a diva. He hates going out in the rain and getting wet but comes alive when the sun is shining.
The characteristics are appropriate for a gelding who brought sunshine into the life of trainer Kayley Woollacott when only dark, forbidding clouds hung over her.
This time last year, Devon-based Kayley was thinking that her training career had only a few more weeks to run. Her husband Richard, who suffered from depression, had taken his life in January.
Trainer Kayley Woollacott poses with three-year-old daughter Arabella and gelding Lalor
It was taking all of Kayley's inner strength to hold things together and keep their small stable on the edge of Exmoor going until the end of the season.
Thoughts of winning a race at the most prestigious meeting of the jumps season seemed as unlikely as they were inconsequential. Kayley's priorities were their daughter Bella, three, and piecing together lives torn apart by tragedy. It has been made easier by Lalor, a horse which champion point-to-point rider Richard had dreamed might put their stable on map.
The strapping gelding had been turned down by several big trainers because of concerns over his breathing. Bloodstock agent Tom Malone paid almost £14,000 for Lalor at a sale in Ireland but it was a year before Richard bought him for David Staddon.
Lalor's two-and-half-length win under champion jockey Richard Johnson in the Grade One Betway Top Novices' Hurdle at Aintree last April persuaded Kayley to carry on.
Kayley had been determined to see out immediate commitments, which included running Lalor in the Betfair Hurdle at Newbury the day after Richard's funeral.
She said: 'In all honesty, I had probably decided by the time I'd got to Aintree that I would not continue with my licence after it was due to run out at the end of April.
'I would have still had horses around, done some pre-training and point-to-pointers, but Aintree was instrumental in convincing me to carry on. Had Lalor flopped, it would have been very easy for me to turn around and say, 'That's it'. I am not sure I would have
