Home life is not employment, and he has had one employer in his life and vowed never again to have another, but he knew he couldn't get to where he wanted to on his own. He knows horses, just like his father, but his mother knew the business, and Willie Mullins found someone, iu Jackie, who is the backbone of the Closutton business.

Everything he does to this day stems from the apprenticeship he served from being born into that family, but when he and Jackie started out in 1988, the aim was to earn enough to survive. The reality of what has followed is astounding. I know bits and pieces from the early days but couldn't write any of it with authority, but since 1996 I have been there and have watched it quadruple.

Timing helps in life, and when I started riding in 1995, Willie Mullins was coming to the end of his riding career, as was Jackie. I rode with them both when I had my second ride at Tipperary on May 25, 1995, when Willie beat me by half-length aboard Step On Eyre, and Jackie finished fifth. The 95/96 season was the last one Willie Mullins spent as a jockey, and I started in Closutton in June of ‘96, where 49 stables stabled 56 horses, and the rest, as they say, is history.

No French-bred or fancy-priced point-to-pointers but a yard full of summer bumper fillies, a clatter of handicap hurdlers, the injured Wither Or Which and the unraced Florida Pearl.

I didn't know then, but the decision to try and become a successful trainer was made at Christmas 1995. A business that relied on turning over young bumper horses for the profit from trade had changed, and a portion of Wither Or Which had been retained so he would stay in Closutton to be trained. The economy was shifting, and Closutton had a vision of growing.

The business model was tight and strict with no frills as the CFO cracked the whip, but more stables didn't yield immediate success, and the rise upwards was one of peaks and stagnation.

There was no office staff. Tracey Gilmore was the head girl, and everybody else did every other job.

Regular board meetings, i.e. family dinner at the kitchen table, saw the brains trust work out where things were slowing them down. What horses they were buying, staff rotation and the general health of the horses all led to changes that enabled them to get to where they are now.

The basic routine of how Willie Mullins trains is still the same, but every season saw something new. Longer warm-ups, more walking, a stricter routine, and staff growth. Corners that had to be cut didn't need to be with more bodies to spread the load, and slow expansion yielded the rewards.

Fifty-five winners in 96/97, 70 winners in 04/05 and 111 in 07/08 and then the jump to 146 in 09/10. Since then, it has been one-way traffic, but this was built on ambition and trial and error.

It has all been built on reinvesting what they have earned, and it started where most people do. Yes, he had the background, but what you make of your experience counts. Competition has seen it grow way further than anyone thought, but it hasn't come without setbacks.

Owners have come and gone, and so too have horses and staff. There has been an odd health scare along the way, and plenty of times, when the dice were rolled, a favourable result was required. Still, you only need to hear him talk in the morning about what some horse was doing late in the evening before to know he loves and appreciates the animals that have gotten him here.

Eight years ago, he was almost there and described it himself during the week by suggesting you must lose a final to win another. That has always been his mantra: losing one race will teach you how to win another. Every trip taken will teach you a new way of doing the job better in the future, and no matter how well or poorly something has gone, it's always what did we learn.

Some bemoan his domination of the Irish scene, and that irks me. It would. I have been in the camp for most of my adult life. I met Gillian there and have listened to my father-in-law tell me stories of what and how Paddy Mullins did things. I see it all again every week, and I see what my parents taught me to be — the best you possibly can. Talent is bestowed on many, but the attitude of working hard is not bestowed upon them all.

The juggernaut Willie Mullins drives is fueled by the only currency that exists in sport. Winning. 

In August, Tramore counts as much as Punchestown in April, and the homebred filly gets the same attention as the next French recruit or point-to-point hero.

At some point this afternoon, he will hopefully walk - more like hobble, at the minute - onto the podium at Sandown, tip his cap and say thank you before he praises his owners, family and staff. He will deflect as much attention as he gets, but tonight, he will return to where he always does to celebrate with the same bunch of people as when he began.

A few too many are missing, but their absence is never lost on him. Tomorrow, he will carry on like yesterday. Only this time, he will be the champion trainer in Great Britain and Ireland. Vincent O’Brien did it before Willie Mullins was born, and in 1988, nobody could foresee an Irish trainer doing it again.

Nobody could see any trainer training over 100 winners at the Cheltenham Festival, let alone an Irish-based one, and nobody could foresee a National Hunt trainer in Ireland attracting the biggest British owners again either.

Willie Mullins has changed everything, won everything and never changed a bit himself. He marvels at what he has stabled outside his back door, and he knows it won't last forever but, by God, is he making the most of what he has.

A standard setter; an ambassador for horse racing and Ireland; a success story; someone I am proud to say I know.