KEVIN Ryan is now established as a leading trainer in Britan, having first made the journey across the Irish Sea 33 years ago as a 15-year-old joining Roger Fisher’s yard in Lancashire.

Talented hurdler, Ekbalco was the stable star at the time but most importantly, it was where the Tipperary native met his future wife, Jill.

He recorded 47 winners as a jockey before calling it a day and spending six years learning as Jack Berry’s assistant. A couple of years assisting his former weigh-room colleague and close friend, Richard Fahey, followed before the opportunity presented itself to take over at Hambleton Lodge, where Sir Noel Murless began his career.

Within a month he had his first winner with the 32-rated Komlucky in an apprentices’ handicap, but since then the calibre of inmate has improved steadily.

Amadeus Wolf provided Ryan with his first Group 1 in the Middle Park Stakes. Palace Episode ended the year well by winning the Racing Post Trophy. The following season Desert Lord was victorious in the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye.

The Grey Gatsby has helped rocket the trainer to another level, providing him with his first classic success in the Prix du Jockey Club. He added a thrilling win in the Irish Champions Stakes and, all being well, will be back to defend his crown. First up though is a hugely competitive looking Juddmonte International Stakes.

Such is the strength of the Ryan string now - Hambleton Lodge houses 120 racehorses now - that there are many more prospects of entering the winner’s enclosure. And certainly, the form of the yard this year would make a failure to do so quite surprising.

You must be happy with the season so far?

We’re having a good year. We’ve a lot of young horses, a lot of nice two-years-olds and a lot of nice two-year-olds to run yet.

You have a good record at your local track in York and at the Ebor Festival. Is it one you target specifically?

We like to have runners at all the festival meetings but especially at York, our local track. It will be a great week’s racing and it’s nice to have the horses to go. We’ll take the best team of horses that we can take there.

The Grey Gatsby, a winner of the Dante at the racecourse 15 months ago, faces a tough task in the Juddmonte International against Golden Horn and Gleneagles. How is he?

He’s in great form. It’s gonna be a great race. We can only concentrate on our fella and we’re very happy with where we have him at the moment.

How is he in comparison to last year? He had little fortune when touched off in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes by Free Eagle.

He’s a year older, a year stronger. You’re up against the weight-for-age which is always a bit hard. He was very unlucky at Royal Ascot and we’re delighted with where we have him. It’s gonna be a tough race but it’s great to be part of it.

Presumably he will follow the familiar middle-distance route after this?

He’ll go back to the Irish Champions Stakes and then probably the Arc.

Did you feel he didn’t get the credit he deserved last year?

In fairness I’ve probably said enough about that really. The horse does his own talking.

You have won the Gimcrack twice in the last three years. Areen has a win over the track and looks to have a good chance.

Areen is in good form. It’s a tough race but he’s entitled to take his chance. He ran well in France in the [Robert] Papin on ground that was way too soft for him. Back in York, he has form on the track and we’re happy with him.

And what else should we look out for?

We have Mohab in the Acomb. We’ve always thought a lot of him. And Ashadihan in the Lowther. She won a maiden and was second in Royal Ascot. We’ll have runners in the Doncaster Sales race as well which is a very valuable race (and which the yard won with Bogart in 2011). We’ll have runners in all the two-year-old races.

York is a place with many happy memories for you, but the fall suffered by your daughter Amy in 2013, after her champion apprentice winning heroics of the previous campaign, was an obvious low point. She was back amongst the winners last week and is beginning to get going again having endured an injury-plagued couple of years.

Amy had a few injuries which have held her up but she’s getting back to where she was. She’s getting some nice rides again.

Is it hard for Dad watching her, particularly since York?

It’s always a bit difficult, especially when you’ve seen her have a few bad falls but it’s her passion, it’s what she wants to do and I support her in every way.

Komlucky in Catterick on July 22, 1988 was your first winner as a trainer, a month after taking out your licence. Is where you are now the result of specific strategy? Has it worked out as planned?

We’ve been training 17 years. We started off with moderate horses and we built it up to where we have 120 horses, our own yard which we bought, and everything that is built there has been built on over the years. We have our own private gallops. We’ve all worked hard and it has been a very lucky yard for us. We’ve gotten a lot of very good winners out of it.

With that have come big owners such as Qatar Racing.

We have a great bunch of owners. I have some owners that have been here from the second or third year I’ve been training. It’s a great team.

In 2005 you had your first two Group 1 winners with Amadeus Wolf in the Middle Park Stakes and Palace Episode in the Racing Post Trophy. Did you think those victories would be a bigger launching pad than they were?

To be totally honest, that year we had the two Group 1 winners, I don’t think it actually got us anymore owners. At the end of the day we just deal with the best of what we’ve got, you know? We’ve gradually built up a base of owners. Now we have a good solid foundation of owners that invest every year.

Yorkshire is more competitive than it has ever been. Mark Johnston has been the flagbearer up north but there is a strong Irish influence now with you, Richard Fahey and David O’Meara too.

Richard Fahey is one of my best pals but there are a lot of great trainers in Yorkshire, as there is all over the country. I have great friends in the training ranks north and south. There are quite a few Irish here. You have John Quinn up here as well, Karl Burke. There’s very good trainers everywhere in the country but there’s a lot of horses in the north now. We’ve been lucky enough to be able to attract foreign owners as well, which was nearly unheard of a few years ago. They were nearly all based in Newmarket. I suppose the start of everything up north was with Mark Johnston. He was the first to really attract the Arabs. Now there’s quite a few horses trained in the north with foreign owners.

You mentioned Irish Champions Weekend earlier and it’s great to hear that The Grey Gatsby will bid to make it a two-in-a-row in the Irish Champion Stakes. What did you make of the inaugural festival?

They did a fantastic job. The courses were fantastic. With the owners travelling over that had runners, they couldn’t have done anymore. They bent over backwards for us. There was a fantastic crowd, great racing and a fantastic atmosphere.

The reception we got with The Grey Gatsby was unbelievable. I know I’m Irish but I train in England, but we got an unbelievably good reception when the horses were coming in. It’s going to be great to be part of it again.

It’s a great weekend for the racing public. A great spectacle.

What do they need to do now to grow?

I think any festival like that tends to grow each year. I know the people behind it and they won’t slack off. They’ll put more into it. I don’t know what more they can do. You’d like to see it get bigger and hopefully attract more foreign horses. Not only from England. It would be nice if they could attract horses from elsewhere. It is great for racing in Ireland.

You have always maintained your Irish connections. Palace Episode was owned by the Marnanes who are from Tipperary like yourself. Have you others?

It’s great. I have trained for Noel O’Callaghan for a number of years now. Noel has always been very good for me. I train for a lot of Irish people. I had Captain Ramius for the McStays, Clodagh and John, that won an Ayr Gold Cup. They’re great people to train for. It’s always nice to have owners from Ireland as well as elsewhere. Obviously I come back for the sales and various other reasons. I have a lot of friends in Ireland friends within the industry.

Being from Golden, there’s a good chance you must be a hurling man. How about Tipperary in this weekend’s All-Ireland hurling semi-final against Galway?

We’ll be watching it alright. Please God. They’re a good team. They’re pretty close.

If they get through, it’s deadly rivals Kilkenny in the final. You’d give anything to win that.

I was actually at the All-Ireland the last time they beat them in 2010. I happened to be in a box right beside where the Mullins’ were. Willie was there. That gave me extra pleasure!

Tipp and a few York winners would make it a good week then.

It would be lovely.