I AM 22 years with The Irish Field and I suppose I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been able to work in an industry that allows me to be able to have skin in the game. If I go back probably over 50 years ago, my grandfather and father, Pat and Eamon McArdle, bought a Lahinch yearling - Brackley Rose - in Mohill Mart for £700.

That was a fortune to give at that particular time, but she really has been the foundation mare for what we are doing in terms of our breeding programme. She had a foal called Brackley Rose Down, by Touchdown, and we were probably one of the first breeders in the country to use Touchdown. Between himself and John Henry, we used both stallions in their first years.