Fledgling Hampshire trainer Emma Lavelle is to have the level of exposure most novices would envy - as the subject of a special TV documentary.

She is to be featured in a five-minute programme called Only a Girl and Horses to be screened on BBC2 in February.

It depicts anything but a Country Life view of her work. True, it does open with Lavelle celebrating her first success with Piper's Rock at Plumpton but it also captures the frustrations and ups and downs of the life of a trainer who is trying to step out of training's chorus line and on to centre stage.

"It's real warts and all," she said at her Little Hatherden yard. "People have said it would do nothing but good for my career but I'm not convinced it will bring in a load of horses. But I've had a preview and I don't think it reflects too badly on me - however when it's shown, I shall watch it all by myself!"

Lavelle, who at 25 became Britain's youngest full licence holder last year, is delighted with her progress which last season brought four winners.

Like so many other trainers, she has been casting eyes at the heavens, waiting for a change in the weather and the ground.

Among her string of 15 is Cool Spirit: "He definitely needs softish ground," she said of the six-year-old who missed the whole of last season through injury.

"He will go for two-and-a-half/two-and three-quarter mile novice hurdles and be ridden by Barry Fenton who has schooled him."

She has also been on a shopping expedition with Fenton to Ireland where she bought three horses with a point-to-point background.

Odagh Odyssey was - to say the least - headstrong. "After he arrived I turned him into a field and couldn't catch him for two days!" she recalled. "But he's more settled now after we put him on a show-jumping course to try and educate him."

Plan A is to run him in a bumper either at Cheltenham or Newton Abbot. Her second acquisition was Fortius and the third Grand Sachem will also follow the bumper and novice hurdle trail.

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