Shabra gets the week off to a flyer for the Irish

I was born and bred in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork and my father had point-to-pointers. He never trained, but he had horses in training. A thing I always wanted to do was train my own horse. I was about 21 before I sat on a racehorse. My father had a point-to-pointer and said to me to crack on and take a chance training him. I then bought a horse with my brother and trained it. She stayed racing, but was never much good. Cloneen Princess was my first winner in the millennium year at Carrigtwohill. She was a point-to-point winner for my father. I bought Cloneen Storm and he won for me as a five-year-old and a six-year-old. That fella won four point-to-points. After him, the licence went. I had another horse for my father, Cloneen Choice, and I took out the licence for him. He won three point-to-points and he came third in a hunters chase in Killarney in 2017.

A delay to racing at Musselburgh saw the final two races separated by just a matter of minutes, with runners for the final contest heading to the track as participants in the penultimate event returned to be unsaddled.

Rebel’s Romance shone once again when defending his title in the rescheduled and relocated H H The Amir Trophy.