'If he hadn't won, I'd have been in trouble. He saved my ass'

For a man who has taken a needle and thread to the lips of anyone who has ever doubted him, Paddy Twomey freely admits he was half expecting the men in white coats to arrive back in 2016.

The moment came when he was agonising over where best to plonk a purpose-built gallop on his burgeoning training operation in the village of Golden in County Tipperary.

"I looked like a lunatic when I was designing this," he says, kicking his heel into the woodchip. "Before we put it in, Ithwas driving the jeep and the tractor flat out around the field feeling every bump and getting a feel for the camber of the place.