THERE was no happier man at Downpatrick races on Sunday than Vincent Caldwell. I had the pleasure of meeting the joint-owner of Poormans Hill after the seven-year-old son of Stowaway (Slip Anchor) won the Toals Bookmakers Ulster National Irish EBF Chase.

The winners’ purse was just over €15,000 but it could have been many multiples given the pleasure winning the race gave Vincent, who owns the gelding in partnership with his nonagenarian mother Kathleen. The story of the winner’s rise from relative obscurity to prominence is one of the season’s most heart-warming stories, and surely puts him in a strong position for an owners’ award later in the year.