There’s is no sense of joy, just palpable relief

HANDS clasped tightly, resting uneasy on his knees, mouth tight-lipped, downturned, and eyes unfocused, gazing into oblivion.

Aidan O’Brien cuts a solemn figure at the post-race press conference. Not the demeanour one expects of a man who has just trained his seventh consecutive Irish Derby winner — his tenth in total.

Under questioning he releases his hands, rubs them nervously on his thighs, answers courteously and honestly, and then reverts to an apparent state of trance. There’s no sense of joy, just palpable relief — the pressure, one suspects, of training multi-million pound thoroughbreds expected to perform on this stage.