'There were plenty of nights I thought about packing it in, not long ago either'

To fully appreciate what winning the Tote Galway Plate meant to the Hanlon household, you need to hear what Mommy Shark had to say about it.

Adorable 80-year-old Brenda, just up off her hands and knees after finding a lid for the huge pot that is about to boil a shoulder of ham for dinner, talked me through her emotions as Hewick was on his way to providing her 56-year-old son with the highest-profile win of his training career.

"I went weak," she says. "My legs nearly weren't able to hold me up. I was hoping and praying he'd win but I thought it was too good to be true. It couldn't happen. I didn't think something like that would happen to people like us."