George Margarson hopes Lucky Kristale can be his first Group One winner in Cheveley Park Stakes The family had sold their home, their furniture was on the dockside waiting to be shipped and the Margarsons were days away from a new life on another continent where the 14-year-old George had been promised they "would even have maids." However, his father took one last job before they went. On the night they sailed one of the men came on board drunk, argued with another and when George's father intervened he was punched and fell backwards catching his head on a table edge. It killed him outright. "You'd think you'd take anything after that because it doesn't half harden you up," he said. But nothing hardens you for this game. Having learned to ride on redundant pit ponies being retrained for Butlins and finding it hard being brought up by two women - his mother and sister - at 15 he was found a job in racing. After little success as jockey he joined Mick Ryan - "a brilliant trainer but not everyone's cup of tea" - as travelling head lad in 1980. In 1996 he took the plunge. "I didn't consider it a big gamble because there wasn't much in the bank," he recalled. Last year Margarson did not have a winner until August but, frustratingly, Excellent Guest was second in the Hunt Cup, second in the Bunbury Cup and, for good measure, Imperial Guest was second in the Stewards" Cup. "We won a lot of money, don't get me wrong, but just imagine if they'd all won?" he said. This year started even worse; 2013 was only two days old when Imperial Guest broke a leg in a prep race for Dubai. "Kempton's a desolate hole anyway but at 7.30 at night, in the rain, in the dark, in the middle of winter and you've just lost your best horse for three years?" he recalled. Almost overnight, however, his luck changed. Woolfall Sovereign won £20,000 in a month, Excellent Guest won the Victoria Cup and along came Lucky Kristale, his second "blue mooner." I had a £30,000 order for a sharpish two-year-old and I thought she'd be in our price range. Some horses you'll accept at the price and some you don't want to lose and she fell into that category. She was athletic, correct, a good walker, she had a good attitude. We got her for 22,000 gns. After she started trouncing everything at home the rest, as they say, is in the form book. This year, purged of seconditis, Margarson has sent out 26 winners from 19 horses, outnumbering seconds by two to one. The Cheveley Park is his Derby, though. "I hope they all get there," says Margarson. Rizeena, Vorda, Kiyoshi, Queen Catrine. I'd like her to prove she's the best there is.