Meet the family behind a remarkable champion sire and Europe's busiest stallion

Life has a neat habit of drawing patterns around us. Sometimes we are attuned carefully enough to perceive them, other times we remain oblivious to the arc of time sketched out, and there are rare occasions when the patterns are so obvious they are presented to us in black and white.

Ronnie O'Neill produces a copy of the Racing Post, tinged with the familiar tint of aged newsprint, when we sit down in the conservatory of the family home. It's from January 2012 and is a profile of O'Neill and his stallion Stowaway, who was the busiest sire in Europe the previous year, covering 312 mares in 2011.

Almost exactly a decade has passed since then but we have returned to see Europe's busiest stallion of 2021, once more a resident of Whytemount Stud in County Kilkenny, and reminisce about the horse featured on these pages who was crowned champion National Hunt sire last season. It's a feat that O'Neill doubts will be repeated.