THERE couldn’t be a more appropriate place to meet up with Joe Flynn than at the Horse Sport Ireland stallion inspections at Cavan this week. It’s where his Ardcolum Duke scored his first big result at the indoor international back in 2013 and where his owner has experienced both sides of the stallion inspections results.

Dreams are readily crushed in the sport horse world. However, the story of Ardcolum Duke and Billy Twomey’s successes and his owner-breeder is the stuff of such dreams that so often begins the day a mare is covered. And yet Joe Flynn’s tale has flown under the radar to date.