THIS week Paddy Power Betfair reported annual operating profits of €437 million. That’s up from €368 million the year before and the suits still aren’t happy.

The figures won’t keep David Power awake at night. He is said to own over 4% of the €7 billion company, making him worth a cool €300 million.

A founding partner in the betting giant, David has only played a marginal role in the company in recent years. He is better known in Irish racing as the country’s leading on-course bookmaker, a separate business owned by his family for generations.

For 50 years David has stood on the box at racecourses all over Ireland and at some of the bigger venues in England. Now aged 71, he has decided to retire and has chosen Cheltenham Gold Cup day to be his final day at ‘the office’.

“I just thought it would be better to go out with a bang at a top-class meeting than on a wet Tuesday at a country track,” he explained. “I love the flat as much as the jumps, once the racing is top-class I’m happiest. I’ll miss the big days, the great buzz, but at my age I don’t need the soakings!”

Ironically, when asked to nominate a really tough day he endured at the track, he recalls a Cheltenham fixture one November. “It was the last day of what was the Paddy Power meeting. It was raining, it was windy and it was bitterly cold. By the last race there were only four bookmakers standing and no punters to have a bet.”

INTEGRITY

There have been many glorious days but you won’t hear David discussing his clients or their bets. He is famous for his discretion and integrity. The likes of J.P. McManus and Michael Tabor are thought to be among his clients but we’ll never know for sure. When the ledger is closed next Friday evening it will stay closed. The pitches will be sold but not the business.

“We have had approaches to acquire our client list but we wouldn’t be comfortable doing that. It would betraying confidentiality.”

Pending a licence approval, anyone can buy the Power pitches now on the market, including the No 1 rails spot at Leopardstown. Before the rules changed in the late 1990s, bookmakers had to work their way up from the bottom of the ring as ‘seniority’ passed from one generation to another.

“My grandfather was the longest-serving bookmaker at Leopardstown and he passed the pitch to my father, and so on. When I started, you had Patsy McAlinden, Paddy Meehan, David Meehan, Malachy Skelly and Terry Rogers. Des Fox and Sean Graham came along shortly after that.

In those days if you did not have a family member to succeed you the seniority was lost and everybody else moved up a place. You could not sell the pitches on the open market.”

When the market did open up, David looked to England and acquired prime pitches at Ascot, Cheltenham and York. Assisted by his son Willie, he soon became almost as well-known in the British rings as at home.

“At Cheltenham we have the No 15 pick but about half of those ahead of us prefer to stand at the lower rail, so we’re usually about number six or seven. It’s a tiring week – you are on your feet all day – but the quality of the racing carried you along. Then in the evening you collapse.”

HEALTH

In good health now, David had a very scary heart episode a few years ago. It happened in December 2014, just before David was due to go to Hong Kong to see his great sprinter Sole Power run.

“About eight weeks previously I had been diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and I was on medication for that. But the day before my Hong Kong flight I felt awful and light-headed. I went to the Beacon Clinic [beside Leopardstown Racecourse] and they told me to stay overnight. I turned out the light about midnight and had to be woken up at 3am with jump leads. My heart had stopped. If I had been at home, well … ”

Accepting that ‘lifestyle’ may have played a part, David was forced to hang up his beloved pipe from that moment. “I had been a smoker for 40 years and to go ‘cold turkey’ was not easy.”

We move the discussion on to the horses he and wife Sabina share. Sole Power won five Group 1 races and the gelding is now enjoying retirement at John Cullinan’s Horse Park Stud in Ashford, Co Wicklow. Slade Power won two Group 1s and a Champions Sprint at Ascot. He stands at Kildangan Stud and will have his first runners this year.

The Power have 10 in training this year, eight unraced. Nine are trained by Eddie Lynam and the other by Eddie’s daughter Sarah. He mentions Gubu and Dapper Power (a four-year-old by Dandy Man) as two who have had problems but have ability.

And has he a Cheltenham tip? “I’m always looking for something overpriced, maybe a horse whose price has drifted after one bad run which could have been down to a toothache or some other unknown reason. Of the obvious ones, I would respect Douvan. Had he not run at Cheltenham last year he would be nearly favourite to beat Altior and not 4/1.”