Desert Orchid's trainer David Elsworth today announced he is to turn his back on jump racing at the end of the season.
The former National Hunt champion revealed he has "lost his appetite" for preparing horses for the winter game.
Concerns over "physical welfare" in a sport which can take a heavy toll on horses have led to the decision.
But Elsworth, who has won virtually every big race over the sticks including the Grand National with Rhyme 'N' Reason in 1988, stressed he has no plans to retire and has his "best-ever bunch" of horses prepared for the Flat season.
He said: "I will run the jumpers I have got for my existing owners until the end of the season and that will be it.
"We have only got a handful now and I would think by March there wouldn't be many more left to run.
"I am not enjoying it any more, it is a change of attitude on my part and what is the point in doing something you don't enjoy?
"It is a great sport and I love most of the people in jumping and I will still watch it but I have lost my appetite for the training because of the physical welfare aspect."
The 60-year-old's latest runner was at Kempton - scene of "Dessie's" record four King George VI Chase wins - where Neat Feat fell in a novice chase on Saturday.
"Going to Kempton yesterday I was worried about Neat Feat - and then he fell and he has come back slightly lame," Elsworth added.
"It has always been the same and horses have always fallen but it is something that has crept up on me.
"We have got 100 horses for the Flat and they are the best bunch we have ever had but that is not why I am doing it - I have just lost my appetite."
Elsworth saddled his first winner over jumps at Devon & Exeter in 1978 and was champion National Hunt trainer in 1987/8, the season Rhyme 'N' Reason won the Grand National.
"I have had a wonderful time and we won every big race bar the Champion Hurdle - in which we had the second three times," he recalled.
"We won the Champion Chase, Gold Cup, Grand National, Irish National and Tote Gold Trophy - they were all wonderful memories and it is difficult to pick out one as the best as each was the best at the time."
But Elsworth's name will forever be associated with 1989 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Desert Orchid.
The grey was rated the best chaser since Arkle, putting up many top-class efforts in handicaps - he defied 12st in the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse in 1990 - and was undoubtedly the most popular racehorse of the 1980s.
"Desert Orchid achieved the most and was the most successful - don't forget he was a top-class hurdler and he was a very good two-mile chaser too," Elsworth said.
"He set the record for prize money earned which still stands, and he has been retired nearly 10 years.
"But we had lots of other good horses too - Rhyme 'N' Reason, Barnbrook Again, Robin Wonder and the rest."
