IT’S 28 years to the day that a 23-year-old Joe Fanning rode his first big Saturday winner in Britain on Highflying in the 1993 Northumberland Plate.

The Co Wicklow native is slightly bemused when that piece of information is put to him, much the way anyone would be, when remembering something so significant from earlier days. Time flies when you’re riding winners, and Fanning has thousands.