'Now, can we keep the wheels on Faugheen and get him to Cheltenham?'

If Ruby Walsh’s physical composition has always been frustratingly fragile, his mental resilience remains his saving grace. As a competitor plying his trade in the highest echelon for the past 20 years, he is surely up there with the world’s most temperamentally robust sportspeople.

He has his critics, same as anyone on a pedestal, but, in the glare of the spotlight when the chips are down, he is about as psychologically bulletproof a mortal you will get.

However, it isn’t just in the white heat of battle that his intellectual fortitude manifests itself. In adversity, he also displays a granite resolve.