Jim Bolger: how his all-pervasive influence tilted the racing world's axis
Richard Forristal on the man who has helped shape the modern Flat scene
Willie Mullins recalls an autumn day in 1981 when his new boss asked him to man the wheel on an excursion to a rural pocket of south Leinster.
He had just begun a two-pronged role as assistant trainer and amateur rider for Jim Bolger, who was still a couple of months shy of his 40th birthday but was beginning to earn a reputation as a thorn in the side of Irish racing's established superpowers.
Development and Pope John Paul II's 1979 visit had effectively triggered the last rites on his Lohunda Park Stables base in Clonsilla near Phoenix Park. Bolger was busy plotting a way out of suburban Dublin.
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