Paul Gilligan: 'You're pushing for a good horse the whole time - and when we got one, the syndicate decided I wasn't good enough'

The incredulous look on Paul Gilligan’s face when he hears the silly question is enough to confirm that the famous old dirge was right all along.

“A lake? That’s not a lake, it’s a field that’s been flooded. This place gets really soaked,” he says. The Galway-based trainer is standing in his rain-soaked yard, about four miles from Athenry where the fields really do lie low. Very low.

Gilligan is back at work in the muddy prose of his winter gallops shortly after a weekend of joyous family poetry at Cheltenham. His talented staying hurdler Buddy One, ridden by his son Jack, won the Paddy Power Games Handicap Hurdle at the November meeting, snugly and in a decent time, and the victory has stirred Gilligan’s optimism for an exciting future for the horse. His plan of attack could include the Hatton’s Grace at Fairyhouse on Sunday but he could also wait for the Grade 1 three-miler at Leopardstown at Christmas.