WE WOULD never have heard of John Milton if he had happened upon Jerry O’Brien’s homestead, nestled between the Arra Mountains and the shore of Lough Neagh, between Portroe and the twin towns of Ballina and Killaloe that straddle the Tipperary-Clare border on either side of Ireland’s third largest lake and the River Shannon.

Paradise Lost was penned in 1667, while Landsdown House was built in 1740, but the surroundings are spectacular. It took Milton 10 books to explain in poetic form why God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

Had he ventured to this slice of heaven on earth, he would have had content for another 10 about a paradise found.

On Tuesday, the sun shone and it was glorious, the trees planted 350 years ago seemingly touching the sky and an array of blooming colours emerging from the shrubbery. If the Hindus have it right, and we might be reincarnated as animals depending on our karma, I hope and pray I have done enough to be a horse who spends his time here.

Horses sense discord, activity, hustle and bustle.

This land is a hive only of serenity. It is where Tiger Roll was carried by Swiss Roll, just as she carries Teofilo progeny now.

It was where he spent the first six or seven months of his life here before being prepped by O’Brien’s former Coolmore colleague, Bill Dwan for the December sales, where John Ferguson paid 70,000 guineas for the son of Authorized.

Having already enjoyed success with Swiss Roll’s Dubawi colt Ahzeemah, who won five times including the Lonsdale Cup and was second in the Goodwood Cup twice, Godolphin were back for more.

JOURNEY

The journey from there has been a long and winding one, and his breeder has followed it every step of the way. O’Brien – he was christened Gerard but signs everything Jerry – is self-possessed enough and sufficiently lacking in any ego to understand that his role in the story of probably the most popular horse in Irish racing is a small one.

“I was just one of the players on the Tiger team. Tom Lynch of Coolmore decided the Entrepreneur mating with On Air that produced Tiger’s mother Swiss Roll. I asked Tom what was the best looking horse down there and he said Entrepreneur. Swiss Roll is 19 now so that’s how this story started, 20 years ago.

“The late Mick Buckley then gave me a foal share to Authorized in Kildangan for Swiss Roll. Then I sent her down to Joe Hernon in Castlehyde and he foaled Tiger. Steven Foyle was the farrier and he used to look after his feet.

“Bill Dwan at Castlebridge – the mother of all gurus I call him – prepped him impeccably for the sales. After that it was down to the virtuoso performances of the trainer, jockeys and the people who minded him.”

IMMORTALS<

Tiger Roll is now a four-time Cheltenham Festival winner and one of the shortest-priced favourites in the history of the Grand National, as he returns to Liverpool next week in a bid to cement his place among the immortals and become the first multiple and indeed two-in-a-row victor since Red Rum in 1974. Rummy went on to win a third three years later but one thing at a time please.

“There’s no chink in the family,” says O’Brien. As well as Swiss Roll, On Air produced Berenson, Pollen and Khachaturian, all regular winners. In those days, when still working, he raced the progeny and sold them from the track.

“It doesn’t matter where the race is or what sort of a race it is. When your colours are going past on something you’ve bred, had at home and seen grow up, you cannot put a price on it. I think it’s the ultimate.”

He points to Swiss Roll’s victory in Galway and her relish of the uphill climb to the finish as a trait passed on to her son who has prevailed five times in total at Cheltenham. O’Brien liked Tiger Roll from the start. He was treated as much like a pet as the dogs Bruce and Poppy are now and indeed, as all the horses have ever been. With just a mare and foal at a time and as a retired vet, he has plenty of TLC to go around.

DEVOTION

You see the absolute devotion he has for Swiss Roll. He describes her as the perfect bay, in that the pure black points begin at the knee right down to the hoof.

“The Tiger is like that too. She has more of a white blaize, he has just the star and it’s whiter. It’s Persil white. Even with a load of Gigginstown horses in a race, he stands out.

“When he was a foal, he was well balanced and very light on his feet. He’d a great presence about him, was a good-looking horse but he had an invincible air about him. Not in an arrogant way. He was a very kind horse. You could put a poultice on him right out here in the field. He was like them all, very amenable, very easy to handle. The one thing about him though was that if you tried to bully him into anything, you’d lose that fight.”

He took time to come to hand however – it is another trait of the family that they improve with age – and never raced on the flat. O’Brien was stunned that he went for only £10,000 and thought something must be amiss.

“I didn’t know who Nigel Hawke was because I don’t really follow the racing apart from my own few but my solicitor friend who reads the Racing Post, said: ‘Your horse is down to run in Market Rasen.’ I was overjoyed that at least he was sound. So I went into the bookies to watch it.”

He bolted up.

“I rang Nigel a few days later to congratulate him. I can still remember, he said: ‘This horse could be anything.’ There was absolutely nothing done with him. And he was jumping so well at home they went straight for a juvenile hurdle, rather than a bumper.”

Mags O’Toole forked out £80,000 for him at Cheltenham as a Triumph Hurdle horse for Gigginstown. He fulfilled his job but has done so much more, adding the National Hunt Chase and two Cross-Country Chases, as well as the Grand National and before Cheltenham, the Grade 2 Boyne Hurdle. Nothing is out of the question for Tiger Roll.

Swiss Roll did not go back to Authorized because the Montjeu stallion is now in France – Haras du Logis sent O’Brien six bottles of champagne after last year’s Aintree success. O’Brien really liked Teofilo after paying him a visit and a liaison with the former champion two-year-old produced a colt who only made 20,000 guineas but has won four times and looks a really good prospect for Mark Johnston entering his four-year-old campaign.

HAPPENSTANCE

Then there was a filly, who through pure happenstance, was bought by another former Coolmore workmate, Eamonn Phelan for €28,000. Now two, she is in training with Joe Murphy.

“Nobody seemed to be interested in Austrian School, even though he was a half-brother to a Triumph Hurdle winner. Maybe it was because he was 16 2hh, a big horse. Fortunately, Mark Johnston bought him and he won first time out. He’s probably bigger now and he’s never been out of the money and if the family is anything to go by, he should get better. He’s rated 102 now and is one to watch as a four-year-old.

“I was after getting such a roasting at the sales – and I was lucky enough they were foal shares – but I said if I brought a filly back I was going to get very little so I’d put her in the National Hunt Sale in February. She was the real deal – she’s got everything.

“I only realised afterwards that Eamonn, who’s a good friend, bought her and I was absolutely thrilled for him. And since then, Tiger Roll has won three more times at Cheltenham and a Grand National. And her-full brother has won four times.

“I hope she does very well for him. That is genuine, more so than if I had her myself. He’s a decent fella and he suffered the tragic death of his wife Kate a few years ago. We soldiered together at Coolmore and hopefully she turns out to be very talented. But even as it stands, he could do anything with her as a broodmare, flat or National Hunt. I’m thrilled for him. Over the moon. She’s already worth a lot more than what he paid for her.”

Before going back to Teofilo last time, O’Brien opted for a change of tack.

BACKSIDE

“A friend of mine said I should think about Exceed And Excel for the speed. I went up and saw him and he was just the right conformation for the mare. He’s built like a tank. So I asked Eamon Moloney (at Kildangan Stud) for a foal share and he said fine and we’ve got a nice filly out of her now. She has a backside on her like a Belgian Blue, very same as her sire. She’s going to be all speed. She’s a nice filly – not as big as the Teofilos, which are all big but this lady has power, a lovely mover. A daisy-cutter again, top of the ground, very little knee action. So hopefully she does well but you never know at the sales.”

It’s an age-old story.

“It’s just overproduction again but you can’t really blame the stallion masters for it because if they don’t cover a particular mare, she’ll be taken down the road to another stallion. Maybe it needs to be regulated, with a limit on numbers going to sires.

“It’s a buyer’s market now. The sires are covering so many and have so many foals on the ground. So if you miss one from a sire you like, there’s another 30 or 40 coming along.”

When it comes to his part in proceedings, he prefers to leave as much as he can to Mother Nature.

“I do very little. I just leave them off. I leave it as late as possible to wean them. The Exceed And Excel filly is a yearling now and I didn’t wean her until three weeks ago. That would be normal in nature but it doesn’t happen like that generally. People can’t with big numbers, but I have the time so I let nature work it out.”

It was how he liked to operate as a veterinary surgeon too.

SCANNING

“There was no scanning when I was in Kildare or even the early days in Coolmore, so you had to use your eyes and hands, which suited me. I always thought I practised the art of veterinary medicine rather than the science. I found the science quite bewildering.

“The easiest thing in the world is to get pregnant. It’s simple. If you go with nature, they get pregnant in spite of you. But if you start to go against nature, then you’re in trouble. You need a bit of patience as well but it all happens. It’s not like surgery, which is very tricky and very complicated. What I was doing, if you hang in with nature, it will all happen.”

With a father who was a cattle dealer, just like his own father, O’Brien was a natural around stock although he knew nothing about horses.

His choice of profession was based on an idyllic notion.

“Veterinary was just because I liked the outdoor life. I always had a romantic view of nature and all that. I hadn’t realised how cut throat veterinary is. It’s as commercial as any other profession or business. I had the idea that it would be a James Herriott scene and everybody was really nice. I got a wake-up call!”

His first placement was with a cattle vet in Youghal, Michael Twomey. The transfer to thoroughbred racehorses came about purely by chance.

“I failed my exams because I fell in love with this Belgian girl and instead of going to vet college, I started going to the Alliance Française to learn French,” he told me for a previous interview in the Irish Examiner .

“And she ditched me after! As I waspersona non grataat home for losing the year, I headed for the Curragh and John Oxx Snr gave me a job. I got it through John Jnr, as we were friendly from being in college together. I learned so much about horses from John Oxx.”

After he qualified, he went to work with the legendary Stan Cosgrove.

FREE REIN

“He was the guru. I learned everything from him. I remember we went out castrating horses and he had the emasculator on.

I said to Stan, ‘How long do you leave it on for?’ and he said, ‘while you say three HaiMarys!’ He was brilliant and he gave you free rein as well.”

Stints picking grapes and studying the history of art followed, O’Brien attempting to find a balance for what he maintained was an excess of science in his life. He then moved to Coolmore before retiring in 2005.

“I haven’t practised since I left Coolmore. It would be like moving from a five-star to a bunk bed. For 27 years I managed to stay under the radar and dodged the bullet in Coolmore, until inadvertently, the Tiger blew that out of the water. In fact he created a tsunami!”

ATTENTION

What Tiger Roll has achieved makes the increased attention worthwhile however.

“Every sport needs a Tiger to bring people to their feet. In rugby we had O’Driscoll and O’Gara. In hurling, Henry Shefflin and Nicky English. Whether you’re Irish or otherwise, Tiger is embraced by everyone and is flying the flag for racing as a sport.”

He watched last year’s Grand National and all the Cheltenham Festival triumphs in the company of Peter McCutcheon, who always cracks open a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

“I’m hugely emotional. I’m hardly able to talk after it. Peter Curling was telling me he was out on the cross-country track last time, at the corner where they turn back into the racecourse. And he said this fella just flew – he couldn’t believe it! Watching on TV, I thought Keith (Donoghue) was trying to hold him back. I don’t know if he saw he was home or what and he was going for it. It was incredible and he did it hard held.”

He will be standing the McCutcheons up this year however, having been invited by the management of Aintree to be present for Tiger’s history bid next Saturday.

“I’m looking forward to it. Last year, Davy (Russell) showed him the fence and he realised that he could brush through the top of them. It was like being at the Olympia watching him. Pop. Pop. Pop. It was poetry in motion.

“For me, one of the highlights, and ITV showed it in slow motion, was when Davy lost an iron. And he just put his hand down and brought the iron to his foot gingerly. So at one stage, he just had one foot on the rein, one foot in the stirrup and a fence coming up. Brilliant stuff.”

He regularly praises the role of trainer Gordon Elliott, jockeys Donoghue, Lisa O’Neill and Russell, and particularly the groom Louise Dunne, the former Meath footballer who treats Tiger as well as she does her own children. As well as O’Brien did at Landsdown.

“I’d say the saving grace for Tiger when he clearly downed tools for a while was that he had that little girl up there looking after him and minding him.

“Win or lose, you can be sure he will give everything and as long as he comes home safe and sound, I will be very happy.”

And so say all of us.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE IRISH FIELD & READ ALL OUR PREMIUM CONTENT