Cork-trainer Terence O'Brien is dreaming of Irish success at the Cheltenham Festival this week, outside of the dominance of the big two Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott, revealing a feeling of reaching "the Olympics" or "Croke Park" after a five-year absence.
O’Brien has found a stable star in Answer to Kayf for his small operation in the south of the country and has settled on Friday's Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle.
The Albert Bartlett was the alternative for the winner of a novice hurdle at Naas in February and previously a third in a Grade 2 at Limerick over Christmas.
He will also run Emancipator in the Pertemps Network Handicap on Thursday in what will be his first Cheltenham entry in five years.
The romance is not lost on O’Brien even 30 years on since he began training horses.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport, he said: "Look, there's fierce excitement in the yard, for a small yard like us, to get to the 'Olympics’. If it’s not the Olympics it's definitely Croke Park, so it is fantastic just to even get there.
"But to be there with a horse like Answer to Kayf, who's got a live chance, is pretty exciting. We haven't been there that often, so you look forward to it.
"The Irish have been so dominant for the last couple of years, but I supposed from a smaller yard, it is fantastic to part of it and to be there with a chance. But, like, it’s so hard to get there and with a horse good enough (to be there and that could win).
"Our bread and butter is the daily routine and the likes of going to Tramore or Clonmel or whatever and we're delighted to even compete and win there.
"Everyone is excited about getting to the pinnacle and for us for our sport obviously Cheltenham is the pinnacle so yeah we are excited, no doubt about that."
This has been a seismic year in his training career with eight winners thus far.
Those numbers are often matched by Mullins or Elliott in the space of a few days as life for the small-time trainer becomes a survival operation as much as anything else.
When the flag falls for the opening race of the festival, champion-trainer Mullins will have a 50% chance of victory in the Supreme Novice Hurdle, training six of the 12 horses lining up.
Questions have been raised over possibly restricting the number of horses a trainer can enter in a race and subsequently potentially opening up avenues for others.
However O’Brien does not feel that would be a step forward.
"I suppose it has definitely been out there, it's been a big talking point but you know they're fantastic operators and I'd hate to see anybody to try and limit what they can do.
"I suppose it was up to the rest of us to try and get there. How we're going to do it? I presume very few people have the ability to do it but there's so many characteristics and so how many qualities you need and they are just fantastic.
"So... I'm not really sure what the answer to it is. I haven't heard any kind of coherent plan to that could sway it in favour of smaller trainers but look, and we just try to do the best we can and mind our own corner and hopefully we can pick up the pieces at some stage."
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