AFTER 80 great years in the racing game, I’m a very lucky man and in these unusual times we live in, it makes me think back to old times and all the success and fun we had.

My own dad, Matthew, was a quiet man while mammy was the tough one. Dad worked for Hubert Hartigan and he’d take me out to the yard on the crossbar and teach me to ride on Molly, a pony I inherited off Jack Lenihan. I remember as a kid being thrown up on a horse called Tale Of Two Cities around the parade ring on Irish Derby day at the Curragh. The idea was to keep the horse quiet until the jockey mounted as he was big colt full of energy - it didn’t work as he finished third that year!