'I'm an emotional person but I couldn't cry, couldn't shout - it was just about the worst feeling in the world'
Trainer Philip Rothwell tells Colm Greaves about his recovery after hitting rock-bottom
The reply comes instantly and emphatically when Philip Rothwell’s close-knit team, sharing a warming winter tea break with an industrial-sized delivery of chocolate biscuits, are rudely interrupted and asked to describe their leader using a single word: “Eccentric!”
Nobody is minded to argue with their colleague’s choice concerning Rothwell, who trains 60 jumpers at Fairwood Stables, close to the picturesque village of Tinahely in south County Wicklow under the watchful gaze of a nearby landmark, Lugduff mountain. Lying fifth in the trainers' championship, with 34 winners and more than €400,000 in prize-money banked, he is having the best numerical season of his career.
Wicklow is a strikingly beautiful place on normal days but, when it lies under a dusting of snow and its rolling fields are whitened by frost, it is magical to the eye. From the top of his six-furlong gallop, Rothwell takes in its charm as he explains how his family came to be in this little slice of heaven.
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