YOU can become a Champion on a day, or perhaps in a season. You can win the title Champion. But you have to earn Greatness. Hurricane Fly has been a Champion for quite a while but it is only in the last few years that he has grafted his way to Greatness.

In Ireland he became a champion who earned his Greatness and who was eventually bought by the Irish people to race for them and while the English never really got him, they play cricket and we play hurling, which tells you all you need to know about them. In the past few days all the tributes have used kind words and impressive figures to pay homage to him but for me what defines him is how he made you feel.

I remember the wow factor of him trashing Go Native by 10 lengths as a novice and the what if when Go Native won the Supreme and Fly was at home. The thoughts of was he ever going to make it when he was defeated in the Morgiana and then missed Cheltenham again. The sweet justification when he edged out the admirable Solwhit at Punchestown for the first time.

I remember the unbridled joy when he finally made it to Cheltenham and put the Brits and Peddlers Cross in their place and stuck the hurdling crown firmly on his head. I still vividly feel the sense of shock and bewilderment when he lost that same crown. The backlash of being the Irish banker that let the people down.

I recall how he gained his redemption by snatching back the Champion Hurdle from Rock On Ruby after looking down and out at halfway with Ruby scrubbing along in the saddle. That sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach suddenly turning to a roar in the back of my throat as he clawed his way to the front and toughed it out up that long and unforgiving hill.

I remember the sense of dread when the new wonder-kid, Our Conor, loomed up in bright yellow with Danny motionless and Ruby fiercely at work and even landed in front of Fly at the back of the last at Leopardstown. How Fly wordlessly snarled Thou Shalt Not Pass, and the sheer pride as he strained every possible sinew he had and fought tooth and nail to victory. And then thinking this is the beginning of the end when Jezki bested him in Punchestown after beating him in Cheltenham too.

I can’t forget the “this could be the final time” feeling every time he won last season. The giddy disbelief mixed with ecstatic happiness as he fended off the reigning champion not once, not twice but three times.

And how could I ever forget the rush of pure adrenalin and excitement as himself and Jezki thundered furiously towards the last, McCoy vs Walsh a forgotten side battle. The wall of sound that greeted him in Leopardstown after that final win is something etched into my memory forever.

What days were you there?

Do you remember it all?

If watching him rage against the dying of the light with his head down, his ears back and that fire in his eye never made the hair above the tip of your spine stand bolt upright and your heart race faster, never made you jump in the air in delight and punch the air in celebration, never made you clench your fist in willing him on and roar out the war cry that was “Come on The FLY!” or never made you simply just nod your head in appreciation that here was a horse out of the ordinary, a horse that was worth actually going to the races to see him run, then perhaps my friend you are in the wrong sport or maybe you were forged in a place elsewhere than the rest of us.

My father once told me I can watch the videos of Dawn Run, look at the pictures and read the books but I’ll never truly understand what it meant at that exact moment in time because nobody then knew what would happen. You didn’t have the build-up, the doubts and the unanswered questions. Nobody expected, as we do now watching the replays, that the mare would get up.

And now after Fly, I get what he meant when he told me that. Jumping the last beside Our Conor, I was sure the show was over, down the back against Jezki I thought the dream was gone, when Ruby sat down in the saddle at halfway trying to lie up with Rock On Ruby I felt the game was up just as when the mare was passed by Wayward Lad going to the last all those years ago.

Fly has given us moments in time that we’ll never forget and while I’m gutted I’ll never again get to roar at the top of my lungs “Come on The Fly”, in celebration or desperation, boy am I glad I got to shout it in the first place.

The Hurricane Fly story has come to an end and I feel lucky to have watched it unfold before me