I'm from Letterkenny, Co Donegal and my first association with horses was through pony racing or flapping. That brings all the young jockeys together and you can see the future racecourse jockeys. Donegal is on top form at the minute with jockeys! The likes of Dylan Browne McMonagle, Patrick McGettigan, Oisin and Conor Orr, Luke McAteer and Martin Harley - they are all top-class jockeys, and they are all making a real name for themselves.

I trained a few flappers myself and won plenty of races. We never had the facilities that we have now, we were dodging into other people's fields! We also went to the beach the odd day. I thought there was nothing like the flapping, I really enjoyed it. You were heading away to different towns and meeting different people. You made friends all over Ireland. I was probably involved in it for 30 years. I had a very good pony called Sing Sing. He was a 14.2hh and we went to Dingle with him and he won three years in a row there.