IT was appropriate that, exactly 12 months after he sent out his first winner, trainer Padraig Roche recorded the first graded race win of his training career when Way Back Home won the Winning Fair Juvenile Hurdle at Fairyhouse.

Actually, Roche’s first winner was 364 days earlier, but it was on the day last year, last Saturday, on the same card. The JP McManus-owned Out Of The Loop ran out an easy winner of the Tommy Carberry Handicap Hurdle under Mark Walsh last year. That was Roche’s first winner, his only National Hunt winner last season.