‘Some of the locals got on at 33-1’ - the £20,000 gamble that made a one-legged British soldier an unlikely Irish folk hero

Younger readers might find it hard to believe now, at a time when Ireland has won every Gold Cup since 2018, but 30 years ago no Irish horse had won the biggest prize in jump racing for a decade. You had to go back even further to find the last Irish winner of the Champion Hurdle, the same horse, Dawn Run, being responsible for the country’s last victory in both races.

In the intervening ten years, the fortunes of Irish jump racing had reached an unimaginable low point in 1989 when the challenge for the Cheltenham Festival, sustained by staying hurdler Galmoy in the previous two years, failed to register a single success. The Gold Cup brought the most crushing disappointment when Carvill's Hill fell at the seventh fence, dashing hopes that the Dreaper yard had found a worthy successor to the peerless Arkle.

The recovery began in the first half of the 1990s but it would really come to fruition at the 1996 Cheltenham Festival. Two wins for Edward O’Grady and one for Arthur Moore provided an echo of the past, while a first festival victory for Aidan O’Brien and a second for Willie Mullins pointed towards a future few could have foreseen.