“TO breed them and train them and to have them win, when you’ve seen them from day one, is very special,” says Claire O’Connell, reflecting on Noble Name’s win in a mares’ bumper at Sligo last month.

For O’Connell, who trains a string of 10 in Co Meath, alongside boarding mares and pre-training, the win was made all the sweeter by the young man aboard - her son Dara John O’Sullivan, for whom it was a first success in the saddle. “It was unbelievable,” O’Connell comments.