AT the 2022 Punchestown New Year’s Eve meet, I had asked a racing friend if he could help me find a yard as I hoped to enter the April festival charity race. I had already tried five yards without success and got the feeling the universe was trying to say something about a man in his 50s trying out as a jockey. However, a visit was arranged with trainer Conor O’Dwyer.

January rain clouds lowered over the Curragh gallops in the barest light of daybreak. And so here I was, sitting in the cab of a horse van with a yard crew literally half my age. The rain had only half passed and yard jockey Charlie O’Dwyer could wait no longer. The ramps of the van fell for me, with the apprehension of an infantryman leaving a landing craft on D-Day.