WHEN Pat O’Reilly went to the Goffs February Sale in 2012, little could he have imagined that the €2,400 he spent on the 13-year-old mare Hirayna (Doyoun) would result in him producing a pair of graded National Hunt winners from the first three foals she would have for him.

At the time the mare had failed to produce a foal for a couple of years, and she had yet to have even a placed horse. Now, after Three Stripe Life’s success in the Grade 1 Mersey Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree, she is the dam of four winners, a couple of placed runners, and she still has youngsters to race for her. What a turnaround in a decade?