A STICKLER for time, I found myself speeding on the road from Goresbridge Sales to Owning Hill, home to Joseph O’Brien, and a yard with a rich history even before its current occupant was born.

If you have been on the roads around that area in Co Kilkenny, you will know that ‘speeding’ is necessarily slow, such are the twists and turns on the route. It is, after all, deep in rural Ireland. Having twice delayed my ETA, I finally land at the main gates in darkness, evening stables completed and with a calm descended on the yards.