Jonathan Powell talks to a trainer currently on the crest of a wave

JONATHAN POWELL
Michael Bell’s first job in racing after he left the Army was a three year stint as a mad keen assistant to Mercy Rimell, an outstanding jumps trainer who died earlier this month at the venerable age of 98.
Mercy was an institution in the racing world, forthright, entertaining, a fund of knowledge and full of common sense which she relished passing on to younger generations.
Of all the would-be young trainers who passed through her stables at Kinnersley, Mercy had a soft spot for Bell who was always to...