Racing: Fifteen-times British champion trainer Martin Pipe has an incurable muscle-wasting disease.
"I have this muscle wastage problem and it's quite disturbing," Pipe said.
"One day, not too long ago, I couldn't walk up the stairs. Even when they got me into bed I couldn't pull the covers over me.
"I had the same thing about two years ago and we thought that was it then. I battled on and, like a lame old horse, the doctors have put me on steroids."
Pipe (61) retired from training five months ago on the final day of the National Hunt season.
He is now working alongside his son, David, who has assumed control of the family business at Pond House in Nicholashayne, Devon.
Asked if his problems will worsen, Pipe said: "I say I'm fine but it's not going to get any better."
The most successful trainer in National Hunt history, Pipe broke every record in the book and set a standard his contemporaries have found it to hard to emulate.
He is the only trainer to have saddled more than 200 winners in a season and won virtually every big race in the book.