'We're trying to honour that history and legacy, it's part of the way we think'

Driving the winding roads that slope down to the banks of the River Nore is one of the most beautiful approaches to a stud, so perfectly sylvan a setting that the urge to find a place to abandon the car on the grass verge and whip out the phone to capture the scene is almost irresistible. The vista is that of Ballylinch and Norelands Studs, along with Mount Juliet, resplendent in their cloak of green.

Ballylinch is woven through the Bayeux Tapestry of racing in a similar pattern to the one the Nore threads through the stud's paddocks and pastures, glimpses of its silver flow caught in the gleam of sunlight from a vantage point higher up in the valley.

In the century or so since Major Dermot McCalmont purchased a spotty grey horse from his cousin Atty Persse and then built a stud farm on his estate for that horse to stand as a stallion, this Kilkenny valley has become a renowned nursery of champions.