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The fact Gordon Elliott is over €150,000 clear of Willie Mullins at the head of the Irish trainers’ championship – and is not even contemplating securing a first title – says plenty about the size of the task he faces on an annual basis.

The statue of Nijinsky as you roll through the gates of Ballydoyle serves as a telling reminder of what this quiet corner of Tipperary is all about.

I'm a Downpatrick man born and bred and have lived here all my life. My first encounter with horses was through my late father Willie Polly taking me out to my uncle Frank Fitzsimon's stableyard in Vianstown which was actually in the middle of Downpatrick Racecourse. That was the place where my mother was born and reared. Frank, who was a brother of my mother, trained horses out there and we used to go out on a Sunday morning to see the horses and would have gone into what was called the home house for tea. My father bought a horse in the late 70s called Mountain Gale who Frank pre-trained and then sent him on to Noel Meade. He had a few wins, but I remember he wasn't a particularly good jumper! That's where my father first encountered Noel Meade. My dad also had a few point-to-pointers of no real note, and he had a horse with Jeremy Maxwell in his time and with Bunny Cox and with John Oxx to name but a few.