So McGrath was never short of a pony or horse, or of land to ride them in. He competed in show jumping and eventing but racing captivated him.

“When I was 12, 13, 14 I was obsessed with RTÉ Racing,” reveals McGrath. “I used to watch Ted Walsh and Robert Hall. At home, there were all these VCR recordings of all the meetings.

"I just got hooked at a very young age. I liked the speed and adrenaline – well more the thought of it really, because I hadn’t tried it, but once I did, I didn’t want to do anything else.

“When I was a kid I used to love watching Timmy Murphy. I was a big fan of him when he was riding over jumps. He was the one fella I tried to be like.”

He attended Ballincollig Community School, where his mother taught, and his parents insisted that he sit his Leaving Cert.

Securing that commitment from their son, they allowed him to decamp to RACE for his transition year.

“I hated the idea (of returning to school) at the time but looking back, it was the best decision my parents made for me. Especially when I was going jumping; 16, 17 is too young to be in the game really, physically and mentally. You’re not developed.”

He rode out for Gerry Cully and got a few spins in point-to-points from the Berrings-based handler.

I had about five rides for him and three of them either fell or ran out through a wing. It was a very poor start. Looking back it could have moved you away from the game but that’s the sport, it just catches you.

It was Niall Byrne, a riding instructor at RACE, who suggested that England would be the right destination for him and he never thought about anything else.

After fifth year, he applied for a summer job with Brendan Powell and rode a winner on his first ever ride for him, Bathwick Quest in a Newbury bumper on August 20, 2008.

Returning to school after that buzz was torture. Three days after sitting his last exam in agricultural science, he was back in Lambourn with Powell.

“I owe Brendan an awful lot, he got me going. He got me five or six winners as an amateur on the track and got me an agent.

"With that, my agent rang me up one day saying Nicky (Henderson) was looking for a conditional and I should ring him up for a trial. The rest is history.”

Seven Barrows has been the dominant racing operation in English racing for most of the intervening period.

“When I went for the trial, it was around August. All the horses were back in but only doing light work. I remember pulling out in the string, maybe 35 or 36 in the string, and thinking Brendan Powell didn’t even have 36 in training and this was one of four lots.”

Two seasons ago, he hit the high point numerically, with 43 winners.

Une Artiste provided him with his Cheltenham triumph in the Fred Winter in 2012. Eradicate, Theinval, Constantine Bay, Santini and Verdana Blue are others to have supplied graded success.

He is on 18 winners this term, with a good chance of bettering the 23 of last season but there is always an ‘if’ in racing, the absolute certainty of injury being around the corner.

The current campaign was going extremely well until he popped the AC joint in his shoulder before Christmas. Then just as he was getting back, the snow intervened.

And now, we are just coming out of the equine flu situation that closed racing down across the water for another week. The flow has been well and truly disrupted.

“This game is all about confidence. When you’re riding winners your confidence is high but obviously when you’re injured and on the sidelines it’s not the best but that’s part of the job. You expect it really.

“The toughest part of it is watching someone else ride the horses so you’re always in a rush to get back.”

Last year, a badly-broken arm that ruled him out for two months in the height of the season prevented him from building on the previous term’s excellence, though the worst was the broken back suffered at Down Royal.

Still, he never considered veering away from his childhood dream.

As a jockey, you’re just worried about when can you get back, how long it is gonna take. Sometimes you rush back and it’s madness.

"Sometimes you come back and you shouldn’t be back. You’re not able to do things that you should be able to do. You’ve got to get back as soon as you can and as soon as the doctor will let you.”

McGrath breeds from a select band of broodmares himself and trades in young horses too. It’s a side of the industry that intrigues him.

His relationship with Henderson is such that he is the trainer’s eyes and ears in Ireland in terms of the thriving point-to-point scene.

He details Henderson’s continuing appetite for success, despite having turned 68 in December, having 60 Cheltenham Festival winners, multiple Gold Cups, Champion Hurdles and Champion Chases among them. For a start, the man that handled the careers of Sprinter Sacre and See You Then, and has Altior and Buveur D’Air among his current crop, bought in excess of 20 unbroken three-year-olds from Ireland and England last summer – his largest intake ever.

“He has great attention to detail. He’s also a very good people person. To keep so many people happy over the years is a big thing. It’s the same with a jockey.

"Training horses, riding horses, is probably the easiest part. But it’s the politics before and after the races. That’s more so in the last three or four years as a lot of the owners that have gotten into the game want instant success, which is rare.

“But at the end of the day, like most people in the industry, he loves winning and that hunger is still there. I don’t see the flame going away any time soon, that’s for sure.”

Any winner at Cheltenham, even away from the Festival, is joy but such is the value placed on it, that being caught on the line on Rather Be in the Close Brothers novices’ handicap chase last March was “probably the lowest I’ve ever been”.

He is unlikely to be in the plate but he is very excited about the prospects of Santini, who provided him with a Grade

Two hurdle success at Prestbury Park in January of last year, is favourite for the RSA Chase and could have his final prep for that at Ascot on Saturday.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s lining up for the Gold Cup next year. That’s how highly we think of him.

His last run in Kempton, even though he finished third, he was doing all his best work at the end on a sharp track. Cheltenham is his track, he’s acted on it before.

“He’s just one of those horses, at home or on the track, we’ve never got to the bottom of him. He’s a bit of a playboy too to go with it, which I think will make him last.

"He always saves a bit for himself but in a good way. He’s never going to win on the bridle, he just grinds things out and does enough.”

What McGrath himself wants now is a good run of fitness and though Nico de Boinville and Barry Geraghty will pick up the plumb rides at Cheltenham, much like the Mullins brigade, Seven Barrows’ third and fourth strings are no beaten dockets.

That will be the time to show who’s master.