'The degree was a bit of a safety net. I knew that I could give racing a go'

Racing and point-to-pointing have always been in the family. My grandfather James bred the 2012 Champion Chase winner Finian’s Rainbow and my younger brother Sean was the champion under-21 point-to-point rider in 2018 and is having a great run on the track now.

When Sean and I were growing up there weren’t many horses around at home, but we always had an interest in racing and there would have been the odd point-to-pointer that we would hack around the fields at weekends.

I always had it in my head that I wanted to be a jockey but when I went to college that started to go a bit. I studied agricultural science at UCD and it was a great experience, but I would say I came out of it with a degree in Paddy Power rather than a degree in agricultural science – racing was always number one for me.