I hail from Churchtown, Co Cork, birthplace of the legendary Vincent O’Brien, so I suppose horses were always going to play some part in my life. Although my family had no direct involvement with racing, my father did a lot of hunting and all of the family learned how to ride from an early age.

At the age of 11, I started riding out for a neighbour, Jimmy Gordon, who trained a few horses and was a champion amateur back in the fifties. He only kept five or six in training but he also had a couple with Michael Winters. When I went into secondary school, Jimmy kindly arranged for me to ride out for Michael and I learned a great deal from the latter over the next few years.