Tell us about the Costellos’ background in the industry because your family has a long association with horse racing.

Well, it all started with my grandfather, John J. Costello. He would have been very big in the half-bred game, between hunters and show jumpers. My father would have grown up in that environment where there were a lot of sport horses about the place. He would’ve gone to fairs and sold one in the morning and bought one in the afternoon. It was all about trading and dealing.

That is where my father, Tom, would have learned his craft and he had a gift for it. It was only as he got a bit older that he realised the thoroughbred industry was more lucrative than the half-bred industry. He did a bit of flapping and he eventually got into training a few point-to-pointers. He took out a licence to train on the track in 1968 and had 24 winners in his first season. He trained the winner of the Irish National in 1973 with a horse called Tartan Ace, who was owned by the late great bookie Sean Graham. He also trained a horse called The Mighty Mac to win the Powers Gold Cup on Easter Sunday. He was owned by the other great bookie of that time, Malachy Skelly. The Mighty Mac was actually going to be second in a Champion Chase when he slipped up at the last. Michael Dickinson won that race and it was the start of his era. The Mighty Mac was bought by an owner of Dickinson’s after, and to this day still holds the two-mile track record for Newbury.

Then the next generation came along, and you and your brothers have had success in the industry too.

That’s right. My brother Tom was a champion point-to-point rider twice and so was Dermot. Tom was also runner-up five years in a row in the championship. He won the four-miler in Cheltenham on Over The Road. Dermot was placed in the four-miler a couple of times, and I actually rode in the race a couple of times too.

My wife Marie, who owns Asian Master, her very first horse was Our Vic. I won a point-to-point on him, I won one on Florida Pearl as well, and I managed to get beaten on One Man.

And now the third generation is coming along. Your niece Emily has featured in our Heart of Racing column and your son Thomas had his first winner on the track last weekend. It must be fantastic to see them doing so well.

It is indeed because times have changed. The idea of local people having horses for a bit of fun has diminished. We rode horses for people all over Clare and Galway at various point-to-points but a lot of that is gone now because of the professional nature of the sport.

It is very difficult for the next generation, the likes of Thomas, Emily and my other nephew, Conor, to get outside rides. The days of going to a point-to-points and picking up a spare ride are gone. It is much more difficult for them to get experience.

Now, the next generation of Costellos show jumped to a very high level very early on. They won all over Ireland. When they were kids, we invested a lot of time educating them in the principles of riding and getting them to ride properly, the very same way that we were taught. My brother Tom won two European gold medals in jumping. We all show jumped at a very high level before we ever went racing. Rather than doing pony racing, my father was very much interested in educating us on the basics of jumping and good hands and all the horsemanship skills that went along with show jumping.

We were all keen to follow a similar path with our own kids. It makes that step into point-to-points that much easier when you have the ability to be aware of speed approaching a fence and being able to see a stride and that kind of thing.

So tell us about Asian Master and Thomas’ win at the weekend. It must have been a fantastic feeling to see your own son carry your wife’s colours to victory for the first time on the track.

Yeah, it was brilliant. There is a good story behind the colours. They are the very same silks I wore myself for my first winner on the track. My parents trained a horse for a guy named P.J. Purcell. They were his silks. I found them at home one day and thought they were lovely.

So I went down to P.J.’s pub and enquired about them and he said he was finished with them and told me that I could use them. The irony of it is that last Sunday was 40 years to the day that I walked into that pub and asked P.J. for those silks. And, as luck would have it, my own son rode his first winner in those very same silks. Just incredible.

Tell us about Asian Master because you bought him very young and he has progressed into a lovely horse.

Yes, we bought him as a foal. Thomas had always shown a keen interest in racing. We bought a few horses before which Thomas had been placed on in point-to-points. We decided we would try to win a point if possible with Asian Master. He was second to Fact To File on his very first outing.

He won at Belclare and we knew he had a good heart and could battle - Derek O’Connor passed him on one of his own horses jumping the last but our horse battled back for Thomas. Then again at Thurles last Sunday, they got into a battle with Paul Townend and his mount, but Asian Master held on.

Were you confident going down that he could win?

Realistically we didn’t expect him to win. Willie had the short-price favourite. All our lad’s form had been over two and a half to three miles. We were hopeful on the day that he might get placed. We certainly didn’t go there with any ideas that he was going to win but the way he did win was so impressive. To be fair, Willie has had the horse since October and Thomas has been with Willie for the same length of time. Willie has done a marvellous job with both the horse and the jockey.

So, as you mentioned earlier, you and the Costello family have had some wonderful horses down through the years, the likes of Florida Pearl, Our Vic and more recently The Nice Guy. When you are looking to buy a foal, what are the key factors you are looking out for?

We are very lucky in that where we live, we have very good limestone land. That has been a key part of our success in producing these horses with enough bone and strength and all that goes with it.

When I’m buying a horse, I need him to look like an athlete. We are constantly buying the individual first and the pedigree second. These days there is a lot of emphasis on fashionable pedigrees. At the end of the day, it’s the horse you train. The sales are built around fashion. The perception is that if he is by a fashionable sire, he has to be a good horse and the results at the track prove that it doesn’t work that way.