This isn't work. When I die, that's when I retire

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Greg Wood tries to keep up with Mick Easterby, whose enduring enthusiasm for training belies his 77 years

Mick Easterby is a 77-year-old in a hurry. "Get in," he says, as his 4x4 comes to an abrupt stop, and then sets off again with his passenger barely halfway inside. "I'm going to show you something special."

Barely a minute later, we are driving towards the top of Easterby's gallop and the views across north Yorkshire are extraordinary. There are green fields and gentle hills in every direction, while to the south, nearly 13 miles away, York Minster stands clear and bright on the skyline.

"Isn't this just the most wonderful place?" Easterby says. "I appreciate it every single time I come up here. There's the Minster, then you turn to the right, and there's the (ruins of Sheriff Hutton) castle. I'm going to get buried up there, at the top of the gallops."

It is a side of "Spitting Mick" Easterby that the punters never see. Not much given to interviews during his 52 years with a licence, his public profile, such as it is, is something of a caricature, the blunt Yorkshireman who minds his own business and would ask you to do the same. And it's true that as he gazes out over his 2,000 acres of farmland and gallops, you can almost imagine him emerging fully formed - stout, ruddy and bluff - from this soil to which he will one day return.

But he has an impish humour too, as if the landscape he loves makes him feel 10 years old again, and there are almost as many stories as horses. "I've told my son he can take over whenever he wants," he says, "but he's trying to wear me out first. He thinks I don't know."

Easterby has long since lost count of the winners he has trained, not to mention the others who passed through his hands as buyer or seller, but his proudest moment - so far - was in 1977, when he saddled Mrs McArdy to win the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket. Better still, given his lifelong passion for shrewd bloodstock deals, a thousand guineas was her price-tag too.

"I saw her in a field and I just stopped dead," he says. "I thought, I've got to buy this one. She was owned by Lord Grimthorpe and I bought six from him, all mares and fillies, for six thousand, but she was the one I really wanted. When I got home, I rang my brother and told him I'd just bought a Classic horse.

"The most wonderful thing about it was that Lord Grimthorpe was not one bit upset, and when she won the Guineas he was the first one there to shake my hand. Me, I might have been sulking, but he was a gentleman. That takes some character."

Other names that stand out in Easterby's extensive record include Lochnager, the July Cup winner in 1976. More recently, he took great pleasure from his achievements with Gentlemen's Deal, a Group winner while also starting out as a stallion.

The loss of last week's Ebor meeting at his local track was keenly felt. "The only thing in its favour is that it's saved me from a few thick heads," he says. "I love that meeting, and after racing we'll always go on to the Mount Royale Hotel in town for sing-song. I love a good sing-song.

"The Gimcrack is one race that I'd really like to win again. And I'd also like to win one of the really big races at Cheltenham, as those have always evaded me. The trouble is, when I look like getting there, I sell them. I can't resist profit, the temptation is always too great." Easterby's is not a hi-tech operation. There is no vet in permanent residence, no weighing machine or pool, just some horse-walkers and an uphill gallop.

"I don't need to weigh a horse, I can tell you what it's lost as soon as I see it, and whether it's had a hard race or not. Blood tests, I done them by the thousand, but what finished me with them was when one of my owners was coming to York to see his filly run, and she had the worst blood you've ever seen. I said, I'm sorry, but she shouldn't run. He said run her, and she ran and she won.

"But I do train up a hill. I was doing interval training back in 1955 and I've always said you can train any horse for any trip with a six-furlong gallop."

As for retirement, he hopes it will not be any time soon. "When I die, that's when I'll retire," he says. "This has never felt like work to me anyway, it's like a hobby and I've loved every single minute of it. I'm the luckiest man standing."