Having grown up around her parents’ breeding operation, Elizabeth was always going to follow in her father Peter’s footsteps and be involved in racing. She has now taken over the mantle and is in the driving seat of the operation. The family had great success last weekend at the Curragh when Dance Night Andday won for them and Ross O’Sullivan.

So tell us a bit about the early days of your family being involved in racing. Your dad had a very nice horse called Tiger Royal

My parents bought the farm here two years before I was born. I have grown up around horses, it’s all I’ve ever known really. Tiger Royal was our first racehorse and was an exceptional first horse to have. He won a listed race and the Greenlands.

I was old enough at the time to know that he was a good horse and we had some fantastic days out with him and the family. I remember when he was very young leading his mother in from the field. When he retired from racing he ended up going to pony club with me so he was very much a part of the family. He was so chilled, he was a very gentle horse.

Tell us about the breeding operation.

Our breeding operation is here in Clane. At the time that Tiger Royal was bred, we had one broodmare called Lady Redford. We have since grown the operation. We have bred some nice horses over the years.

Most recently, we bred Garfield Shadow who won on day one at Chester. We try to sell, but as a small breeding farm, sometimes it can be difficult to get our horses into the sales. Sometimes you are just forced to race horses.

Can you tell us a little bit about the background of Dance Night Andday?

She was very good-natured as a foal. She was a lovely foal but she needed time to mature hence why she didn’t run at two. She is thriving at the races. She has been remarkably consistent and Ross always has her looking fantastic.

Chloe has been the groom responsible for her in both of her starts this year and she has won best turned out on both occasions. It is a testament to how well she is being cared for.

She is from a lovely family that goes back to Kingman so we are hoping that she will be good enough to get blacktype and she will be retained for breeding.

How did you think the race panned out for her last weekend?

Well, she had won at Naas over six furlongs so we were confident enough that she would be capable of winning over that distance again. She likes good ground and we had a very good jockey in Colin Keane so it just came down to whether or not she would be able to cope with the extra weight.

She was put up 8lb after Naas and she only had 13 days between races. However, she is a tough filly and she looked fantastic in the parade ring, so we were looking forward to a good run.

She is very tough and she will always give us her best. She is a fantastic horse to own and she is so determined.

She is two from two this year, which seems to suggest that she has done extremely well over the winter – is that fair to say?

Yeah, she came home to us for the winter after her run last November. It was good for her to have a break. She turned out with another horse of ours, The Worlds Astage.

When Ross got her back in the spring he couldn’t believe how well she had done over the winter. She is a big filly and she needed that time to mature between three to four. We are very excited about how good she can be and how much more improvement is in her still.

Tell us a about the relationship with Ross. A very personable trainer who has an awful lot of success on the track.

Absolutely, Ross is lovely to deal with and he is very confident in everything that he does. His horses always look very well and the yard is in tremendous form. The horses are very happy and healthy in his yard. This is our first horse to have with him and it has been a very successful introduction.

It was a bonus to have the services of Colin Keane in the last two outings.

Definitely, you need so much luck in racing in Ireland. Every race in this country is extremely competitive. To have a jockey as good as Colin Keane is a massive plus.

For each of her three wins, Colin has been on board so the two of them are getting to know each other really well which is a huge help.

Has she come out of the race okay?

Ross is very happy with how she is. She has a great attitude and when she goes home she kind of just switches off. He said the night before she won, she was panned out asleep in the stable. She never gets too stressed out. She loves to eat which is always a good sign and we are very happy with how she came out of the race.

How have you found the race day experience as an owner?

It has improved massively over the last few years. Racehorse owners are being looked after brilliantly these days. There was a long time that owners would just get admission but now racecourses are fully aware that they need to be looking after the owners to try and entice new owners into the sport.

Even if you don’t win, the racecourse will give certain ticket allocations and lunch vouchers as well which is always very nice. If you are lucky enough to have a winner, they make a big fuss of you as well. We are very appreciative of how we are looked after these days and it is a big improvement on how it used to be.

You mentioned about being forced at times to put horses into training yourselves, is it more challenging now to be involved in that end of things than it used to be?

Yeah, sometimes you are left with no other option than to keep a horse. It is an extremely competitive business in Ireland and sales places are hard to come by. We have bred good horses though which helps and we are continuing to do so but certainly, at times it can be challenging.

There are some massive positives though when we go racing with them and it works out. For example, my baby Nathan who is seven months old now, was at Dundalk at three weeks old and he has been up at the Old Vic as well watching Dance Night Andday do her work. They are the good moments. It’s very much a family-run operation so I am hoping he loves racing as much as I do.