'You have no idea how important the horses are. You need to be on the good ones'

It is not quite licking your elbow or sneezing with your eyes open, but JJ Slevin did something extraordinary at Fairyhouse on Tuesday. Something eight other jockeys, which included Davy Russell, could not do in the last three years. Something we feared might never happen again. Something even Joseph O'Brien was having doubts about.

Slevin somehow managed to persuade Ivanovich Gorbatov to win a race for the first time in more than three years. The 2016 Triumph Hurdle winner, who had Apple’s Jade, Footpad, Clan Des Obeaux and Frodon behind him that day, had gone 24 races since then without a single success, but the stylish Slevin scraped paint, cajoled the seven-year-old into contention and hurled him into the last hurdle. He wasn’t taking no for an answer this time.

The RYBO Handicap Hurdle, worth €100,000 in prize-money, was Slevin’s latest addition to a CV that was pretty bare before Champagne Classic claimed the 2017 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle. He doubled his Cheltenham Festival tally last month when Band Of Outlaws won the Fred Winter and who can forget last year’s Irish Grand National when he got General Principle to poke his head in front right on the line in a driving five-way finish.