Horsepower: New four-part series follows day-to-day life at Park House Stables in Kingsclere, Berkshire

We begin tonight’s double-bill as the 2020 season comes to an end, with top jockey Oisin Murphy under pressure as he defends his title. However, he must do so under a cloud – he had recently received a three-month ban for testing positive for cocaine use during a race in France.

The documentary promises that we will see Oisin at his “best and worse” and it certainly delivers on this front. Oisin, it must be said, maintains that he has never actually taken the drug and the French governing body which issued the ban has accepted his reasons for it being in his system through ‘environmental contamination’.

Nevertheless, the incident – coupled with a previous alcohol-related episode which caused him to miss a day’s racing last year – has clearly had a huge impact and affected him both on and off the track.

Murphy grew up in Killarney, Co Kerry, and began riding at the age of four. By seven, he had his own pony, Rusty, and by the time he was 14 his family had moved across Ireland so he could train in better stables.

He was only 17 when he joined Kingsclere in 2012, so almost a decade on he has become a key figure at the stables and won his first British flat racing Champion Jockey title in 2019. It was the culmination of a lifetime ambition.

It is disappointing for him, more than anyone else, then that he found himself in situations that paint him in anything less than a positive light as an example to the rest of the team.

Meanwhile, top trainer Andrew Balding (brother of sports broadcaster Clare and son of legendary horse trainer Ian, who preceded Andrew at the stables) has his work cut out prepping horses for races in the US.

However, his attention is divided – he must also be forever on the lookout to recruit new talent.

In the second edition groom Abdul hopes to find his missing brother from Sudan, as winter sets in at Kingsclere and Andrew sends his runners to the Middle East.

Oisin returns from his ban and needs to make a big, positive impact. He hopes to do so on a prize filly – ironically called Alcohol Free.

Keen observers of the “sport of kings” may have an idea of what is to come, but even so this fascinating fly-on-the-wall series will provide an insight at a level that has never before been seen in horse racing. Those who are less well versed will have even more twists and turns to look forward to.

Suffice it to say that enough happens after the show’s scope ends in 2021 that a second season would not be short of subject matter.