'I trained anything that anyone would give to me and most of them were terrible'

A few weeks after Tu Va won a maiden hurdle at Wexford John Lennon released Imagine and, while the man who rode, owned and trained the grey gelding may have been a dreamer and hoped that first winner would not turn out to be the only one, there is no way he could have imagined what the next half-century had in store for him.

It was 1971, the same year the Nasdaq became the world's first electronic stock market, and those who took out shares in a fresh-faced 20-year-old with no background in racing whatsoever have been profiting from the shrewd investment ever since.

"It doesn't actually feel like that long ago," says Noel Meade, reminiscing from the sun-drenched patio of his Castletown home in County Meath on an August afternoon that wouldn't be out of place on the Algarve. So hot, in fact, that iced cappuccinos are the drinks of choice. Thanks, Derville (Noel's wife).