The holiday season at Closutton has never been so short and how the small jumps stables survive I will never know!

The other morning Johnny Murtagh was talking about how tough the Flat game has become in Ireland, particularly the two-year-olds' maidens.

"You've Aidan, then you have Joseph and now Donnacha coming along as well so it's getting harder and harder each year," mused Murtagh. "The two-year-old maidens are getting harder to win and even sometimes I'd say to my jockeys, 'Could this fella win an auction maiden?' But sure everybody is like me and keeping one for the auction maiden so instead of having one 6-4 favourite that you're hoping to finish second to, there's probably four, five or six in there to beat. It's just very, very competitive and very, very tough.

"I used to embrace it when I was winning ten two-year-old maidens a year, but I have had one two-year-old winner this year. The standard has risen so high. If you finish second in a two-year-old maiden in Ireland, you get three calls on the way home and he could be sold to America."