JOCKEY Robbie Power has yet to master the art of bilocation but he’s giving it a real good go at present. Travelling between two of the most successful yards on opposite sides of the Irish Sea – Jessica Harrington’s and Colin Tizzard’s - has its demands but the 38-year-old Meathman wouldn’t swap his lot for anything.

That best of both worlds gives him one of the best jobs in racing. Power’s riding career has been like a fine wine, maturing with age and a lot of patience and some years have provided a better vintage than others.

Quietly, however, he has amassed an enviable racing CV that includes a Cheltenham Gold Cup, an Aintree and an Irish Grand National and his achievement of winning three Gold Cups on Sizing John over the space of three months in 2017 is a unique feat that may never be matched.

These are heady days for Power, a diehard Liverpool fan, and just like his beloved Reds, for him the next few weeks hold out the prospect of great glory.

I met up with one of the nicest guys in Irish racing to reflect on past successes, to discuss his island hopping and to look ahead to the most important four days in a National Hunt jockey’s life.

DK: Robbie, what was your earliest Cheltenham memory?

RP: I suppose it was of a horse my father once trained, Toby Tobias. He finished second in the 1990 Gold Cup to Norton’s Coin.

I remember sitting in the sitting room with my dad (legendary show jumper Captain Con Power) watching that race. It looked like Toby Tobias was going to win but Norton’s Coin, a 100/1 shot, came up on the outside under Graham McCourt, to beat him. My father’s footstool almost hit the ceiling with a kick.

My dad had trained Toby Tobias over hurdles but his owner put him on the market and he was sold to Jenny Pitman. He was a very good horse – he had finished fifth in the Sun Alliance Hurdle (Ballymore Hurdle) a couple of years prior to his near miss in the Gold Cup. It was a real shame for Toby Tobias to get beaten by a 100/1 shot.

If the favourite, Desert Orchid, beat him it wouldn’t have been so bad!

Your first winner at the Cheltenham Festival was on Bostons Angel in the 2011 RSA Chase and that was a day you will forever treasure, but do you remember your first ever ride at the Cheltenham Festival?

My first ride at a Cheltenham Festival was on Cregg House in the 2003 Mildmay Chase for Paddy Mullins. He was a 33/1 shot and finished third.

My first winner at the Cheltenham Festival in 2011 was a day I will remember the same as the day I rode my first ever winner.

I had had a bit of bad luck in the race before with Oscars Well – I though he was my best chance of a winner going over to Cheltenham – he looked all set to win the Sun Alliance Hurdle (Ballymore Hurdle) – he jumped the last really well but he knuckled at the back of it and we ended up finishing fourth.

To gain compensation half an hour later was a great relief. You never forget your first Cheltenham winner.

Bostons Angel was a gutsy but quirky sort and it was a great training performance by Jessica Harrington to get him to win an RSA Chase.

He probably wasn’t the most talented horse I’ve ever rode but he had a massive heart – he won three Grade 1s that season by a combined total of less than a length – he was just a really, really tough horse. There were a couple of well-fancied horses in that race – Jessies Dream had beat him a long way over two and a half miles in the Drinmore and Time For Rupert was the English banker for the race – we were kind of hoping we had an each-way chance. Time For Rupert didn’t run great and Jessies Dream landed upsides me at the last but I kind of knew that up that stiff Cheltenham hill, my lad would battle all the way to the line because he was a really tough horse and that’s exactly what he did.

The Cheltenham Festival is a full-on experience for everyone involved – owners, trainers, jockeys and even punters. There’s a lot of pressure and expectation to deal with over the build-up and over the course of the four days itself?

Yeah, there is, I suppose. At this stage of my career, I can deal with it much better than I did 10 years ago. A lot of people go to Cheltenham with huge expectations but I don’t let myself get too carried away with what’s going to happen that week any more. You should go in expecting the worst and hoping for the best and then you are never too disappointed.

It’s a huge week for everyone involved in racing. A lot of bubbles are burst at Cheltenham and a lot of people leave there very disappointed, so I try not getting too excited about it beforehand.

I’m sure the fact that so many people want to talk to you about Cheltenham, talk about the chances of this or that or the other, it’s probably best to keep a low profile beforehand?

It is, yeah, the talk about Cheltenham starts so early these days – it’s a bit ridiculous. It actually starts at the October meeting at Cheltenham – more than five months before the March festival; people looking for prices for horses winning novice hurdles in October and they probably won’t even line up in March. People asking in early January what horses will be running in what races when most of these decisions aren’t usually made until maybe a week before the Cheltenham Festival, at the earliest.

The increase in the number of races at the Cheltenham Festival in recent years has muddied the waters in relation to horses intended targets and there’s talk now of the meeting going to five days. What’s your view on that?

I couldn’t think of anything worse. Cheltenham is the Holy Grail of National Hunt racing and it doesn’t need to be diluted. It would be like adding a lesser division into the Olympic Games. Like having a gold medal for a 100m reserve final.

If you win a gold medal at the Olympics or if you win a big race at the Cheltenham Festival, it is the highlight of your career. It does not need to be diluted any further with ridiculous handicaps. There are enough races at present of sufficient quality and it doesn’t need any more.

I think the addition of a mares’ chase is fair enough and if I could nominate a race to take out to replace it with, it would be the juvenile handicap hurdle.

Your Gold Cup victory on Sizing John was the stuff that dreams are made of.

Yes, it was. To win the Gold Cup or the Grand National is the highlight of any jockey’s career and I have been lucky enough to win both.

That Gold Cup win was really, really, special. Sizing John was new to the yard that year. We always felt he wanted a step-up in trip – he won the Irish Gold Cup that year – which probably wasn’t the strongest of Irish Gold Cups – and he had won the Kinloch Brae in Thurles over two and a half miles.

Because he had such good form over two miles behind Douvan, a lot of people going into that Gold Cup, apart from myself and Jessie, thought he wouldn’t stay.

From that point of view, the pressure was kind of taken off us. He was relatively unconsidered and went off at 7/1. A lot of people thought Djakadam was the big Irish challenger and you also had Native River in there. Nobody had been taking a whole lot about him.

Isn’t it extraordinary that Sizing John might never have won a Gold Cup were it not for the brilliance of Douvan, forcing that step-up in trip?

Yes, that’s exactly it. Douvan was a standout horse at that time and Sizing John had been second or third to him no fewer than seven times. I remember saying to Jessie we will have to try and step-up in trip or chase Douvan around for the rest of the season, so we decided to step-up in trip.

You have been steeped in horses all your life, your parents are both very much involved in horses, so it must have given them huge pleasure to see their son reach the pinnacle of this profession by winning the Gold Cup, the most prestigious prize in National Hunt racing.

Dad got close with that horse he used to train, Toby Tobias, and it took us almost 30 years to finally have a connection with a Gold Cup winner. Mam and Dad gave me a great upbringing, taught me right from wrong, and gave me a great grounding in equine sports.

The best piece of advice my father gave me was: “What happens today, do not carry it with you, move on and forget about it.

When we had a bad show with ponies he used to say: “What happens in Cavan stays in Cavan.” We would go on and win at the Galway County Show the following week, so you learned to just move on. I have always benefited from that advice when riding racehorses.

Do you remember much about your father’s career? He was a part of the famous Aga Khan Nations Cup ‘dream team’ and was very much a legend in his own right.

Most of Dad’s big successes happened before I was born – they won the Aga Khan hat-trick in 1977/78/79 and I wasn’t born until 1981, but I have watched them so many times on DVD and I am fully aware of what he achieved.

Every year when I go with him to the RDS, people still come up to him and talk about that extraordinary time in his life. It’s amazing that show jumping was actually bigger than racing back in those days.

Going back to Sizing John. To win all three Gold Cups in the calendar year was a fantastic achievement and one that most jockeys will never get a chance to achieve over the course of their careers.

Yes, that was probably one of the greatest training performances and I don’t think that Jessica Harrington got enough credit for it. To keep a horse fresh over those staying distances; to win an Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown in February, to go on to win a Gold Cup at Cheltenham in the middle of March and then bring him back to win a Punchestown Gold Cup at the end of April was just an unbelievable training feat.

A two-mile chaser can get away with it but to keep a horse on the boil for that length of time over staying trips at that level takes some doing. It’s a feat that I don’t think will ever be achieved again.

And it was memorably topped off by one of the best rides of your career. That finish between yourself and Sizing John and Ruby on Djakadam in the Punchestown Gold Cup in 2017 will be long remembered in the pantheon of great finishes.

Yes. It was the greatest race I ever rode in. I got a great kick out of that. I came out on the right side of it. I’m sure Ruby won’t think it was the best race he had ever ridden in. A Gold Cup winner and a horse that had finished second in two Gold Cups battling it out to the line. It was just a fantastic race.

Your Grand National win at Aintree in 2007 on Silver Birch, you were just 25 at the time and I’m sure you probably didn’t fully appreciate what had just achieved. You were much younger and the game probably came a little easier to you?

Yes. That’s exactly it. I was fully aware of how big the Grand National actually was with all-day long BBC coverage at that time, but it wasn’t until I had my next four or five rides in the race that it dawned on me how difficult a race it is to win and how lucky I was to have done it.

My first two rides were a completion and a win, so initially I didn’t think it was that big a deal but you come to appreciate how everything needs to go right to win a Grand National and how fortunate I was that it happened for me on Silver Birch.

Silver Birch’s victory provided the perfect insight into the future genius of Gordon Elliott.

Yeah, exactly. What Gordon has gone on to achieve in a short space of time since he won that Grand National is incredible. I had half grown up with Gordon and knew him a long time. He was always a very good horseman.

He was very ambitious when he decided to go training and wanted to be successful. He got Silver Birch, a horse that was a cast off from Paul Nicholls for 20 grand at the Doncaster Sales.

Gordon won an open point-to point with him and started hunting with him. That trick of hunting with Silver Birch really sweetened him up – he was a horse with plenty of ability having won a Welsh Grand National and a Becher Chase as well but Gordon rekindled the fire in him and to this day Gordon is still doing it. Apple Jade’s win at Leopardstown this Christmas was another classic example of this.

You will have a great book of rides to look forward to at the Cheltenham Festival this year. Fiddlerontheroof, a Goffs UK Aintree Sale graduate, was a very impressive winner of the recent Tolworth Novices Hurdle at Sandown and Colin Tizzard has another very nice novice hurdler in Master Debonair. Both are very promising young horses.

Yes, they are both very good horses. Fiddlerontheroof was very impressive in the Tolworth and really handled that soft ground. I think he is a horse who has gotten better and stronger as the year has progressed and is exciting. What he did in the Tolworth was another big step-up on his maiden win, so he will have a couple of options come March.

Whichever option he goes for, I wouldn’t be a bit worried. He is a very talented horse. He has a nice turn of foot on soft ground but I would be a bit concerned at a proper good-ground Festival that he mightn’t have the pace. He acts on good ground but there’s a small concern as to whether he would have the pace on good ground over two miles.

Master Debonair was very impressive from the front when he won the Grade 2 hurdle at Ascot over Christmas. He probably needs to brush up on his jumping a little bit but that’s a work in progress. His jumping has improved with each run and with plenty of schooling and he will probably have another outing before the Cheltenham Festival.

Colin Tizzard has said he will try to split the horses up and if I have to make a couple of decisions in relation to the novice hurdles, then so be it, but when it comes to the Cheltenham Festival you have to run your horses in the races best suited to them.

Lostintranslation is a major Gold Cup contender this season – currently third favourite for the race. He’s a brilliant jumper who won the Betfair Chase at Haydock in great style but he disappointed at Kempton in the King George Chase. Kempton didn’t appear to be his bag and he never really got into the race.

He was very, very impressive at Haydock and got into a lovely rhythm and beat Bristol De Mai, which was a very good performance. From the moment the flag fell at Kempton he never felt comfortable. His biggest asset is his jumping and he didn’t jump as well as he usually does.

It was disappointing, but the good thing to take out of it was he was still there four out and it was only his pure raw ability that got him there. He made a mistake at the fourth last and I immediately pulled him up. That run was too bad to be true and he wouldn’t be the first horse to flop in a King George and go on to win a Gold Cup. Imperial Commander and Looks Like Trouble both flopped at Kempton and went on to win a Gold Cup.

There’s plenty of strength in depth in this year’s Gold Cup entries.

There’s loads of talent in there. I still think Al Boum Photo sets the standard. He’s last year’s winner and I would forgive him getting beaten by Kemboy at Punchestown off the back of that grueling run in the Gold Cup. There is probably very little between them, they are two very good horses.

Can Kemboy do it over three and a quarter miles at Cheltenham? That’s the big question. He was an early casualty in last year’s race and nobody is any the wiser as to whether he can stay the Gold Cup distance. (Second in the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown).

Al Boum Photo ticks all the boxes and he is the one they all have to beat anyway.

Slate House won the Kauto Star Novices Chase at Kempton and is unbeaten in his last three completed starts, so he is another nice horse for you to look forward to riding at Cheltenham.

Yes. He most likely will go for the RSA Chase. He was a good winner at Kempton on St Stephen’s Day and beat Black Op, arguably an awful lot easier than Champ beat him, so Slate House is probably better value for the RSA Chase than Champ, especially after Champ has had that fall and has to rebuild his reputation.

Slate House has got handicap experience and was very unlucky not to win the BetVictor Chase, a valuable handicap at Cheltenham, back in November. He was still travelling really well at the second last and just knuckled over on landing. Apart from that bit of bad luck, he has been foot perfect.

That Cheltenham experience will be of huge benefit to Slate House and the way has tackled those fences in the past will give you plenty of confidence in him.

He also won a Grade 2 hurdle at Cheltenham and won a chase there on his run before the BetVictor, so he has lots of experience.

Whatever little few issues he had last year, Colin Tizzard seems to have ironed them out and he looks a very good horse this year.

(Slate House was pulled up in the Paddy Power Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham behind Santini at the end of January.)

Reserve Tank, a Goffs Land Rover Sale purchase, was very impressive over hurdles last season – do you think he can transfer that ability over fences?

He was a dual Grade 1 winner over hurdles and has taken well to fences, winning a Grade 2 novice chase at Wincanton last November, but he will be a better horse on the better ground.

He will probably have an outing before Cheltenham but he’s a lovely horse who will definitely come into his own come the spring.

You have a great perspective at present on the novice chasers on both sides of the Irish Sea. Who are the standout performers?

I think probably Battleoverdoyen sets the standard here for the staying division. (Fell in the Flogas Novice Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival behind Faugheen.)

I don’t think the two-mile division is particularly strong at present although Notebook was impressive at Leopardstown winning at Christmas and then the Arkle NoviceChase at the Dublin Racing Festival.

I really fancy Champagne Classic for the now three-mile, six-furlong National Hunt Chase – I think he is a standout for it. I won on him at Wexford and I think that race is tailor-made for him and it helps that he has won at the Cheltenham Festival before.

What horses have impressed you most this season?

Envoi Allen will deservedly wear the headband for Irish banker at Cheltenham. In the novices, I have already mentioned Champagne Classic for the National Hunt Chase and Chacun Pour Soi for the Champion Chase. He looked like he needed that run at Leopardstown at Christmas and then he won the Dublin Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival. I think he’s a very talented horse.

You have had a brilliant season so far and have already ridden as many winners at this stage of the season as you did over the course of the whole of last season. Things are going well for you, you are riding at the height of your powers and it must be a great feeling.

I’m very lucky to have good jobs on both sides of the Irish Sea and when you are riding good horses you don’t mind flying back and forward. It is going very well now at the moment, thank God.

I’m sure people will look back in years to come on a wonderful era for National Hunt racing over the past couple of decades.

I have been so lucky to ride against some of the greatest jockeys that have ever sat on a horse. McCoy, Ruby, Carberry and Geraghty. Francome and Dunwoody set the standard before them but the quality of riders in recent times has taken that bar even higher.

You are a diehard Liverpool supporter and you must be delighted that they are on the verge of winning their first league title in 30 years?

Yes. It’s absolutely fantastic and hopefully by the time the Cheltenham Festival starts, the Premier League will be in the bag.

A few winners at Cheltenham and Liverpool to wrap up the title that week would be very nice. You need an escape. It can’t be all about racing.

On a Saturday evening after racing, I love catching up on what has happened in the football that day. You also meet a lot of footballers at the races as well, as for many of them that is their escape.

And you also enjoy your golf?

Yes. I try to play a good bit of golf during the summer. I’m not getting any better at it but I enjoy trying. I love getting out on a golf course for four hours on a nice afternoon and forgetting about everything else.

Jessica Harrington and Colin Tizzard – are they alike or very different?

They are very alike because they keep things simple. They are very good horse people who have a great understanding of their animals. They both know how their gallops work and don’t change things on a regular basis for the sake of it. Everything is straightforward.

I suppose they are also similar in that both yards are family run?

Absolutely. Colin has the help of his son and assistant trainer, Joe. His wife Pauline and his daughter Kim are hands-on also.

It’s the same in Jessie’s as she has the help of daughters Kate and Emma and her son-in-law Richie Galway.

They are both brilliantly run family businesses.

I remember Ruby Walsh telling us during the making of the Jump Boys documentary that he became really skilled at getting in and out of airports in a hurry. He wore slip-on shoes and didn’t wear a belt for example. I’m sure you have developed similar skills?

Yes. I rode in the four o’clock race at Chepstow yesterday and got the six o’clock flight home out of Bristol, so you get it down to a fine art. You know what you can and can’t make in relation to flight times.

I wasn’t able to sleep on airplanes in the past but I have no problem sleeping on them now!

Power naps. And well deserved too!