EVERY once and while in this job a little bit of magic happens and you just want to keep writing, tweeting and talking about it.

Last Friday, it happened at the RDS arena when Mexico won the Aga Khan Nations Cup. The press conference afterwards had everything a journalist would ever want – excitement, emotion, sadness (from the Irish) and singing in the form of ‘Olé Olé Olé’.

Again, it isn’t that often that you get anything wonderful from a press conference, but Friday’s left everyone feeling so excited about the sport that we all love. Federico Fernadez summed it all up when he said with tears in his eyes: “We are so proud and so happy. It’s an amazing show, such a tradition, really you can’t help your tears falling out of your eyes.”

Fernandez has the most incredible story to tell. He survived one of the worst plane crashes on record in 1987 when the horse transporter plane he was travelling on came down on a motorway in Mexico City, killing 23 horses and up to 50 people.

Now, he takes nothing for granted and told how, after surviving 50 operations and the trauma of the accident, he lives every day to the max, citing Friday as one of his best days ever.

What is even more spectacular is that his Nations Cup mount, Landpeter do Feroleto, survived a lorry accident some years ago. On the way home from a show, the driver of the lorry fell asleep and many of the horses on board were killed. Landpeter still has the scar on his neck from the huge open wound yet the brave horse has no fear of going on the lorry.

MIND OF A CHAMPION

“He is an amazing horse, he has the mind of a champion,” Fernandez said, to which his teammate Patricio Pasquel added: “Both the horse and rider!”

FEI journalist and press conference director Louise Parkes, and much of the Irish public, have renamed Patricio as ‘Paddy’, something Rodrigo Pessoa remarked will definitely stick!

Amazingly, three of this brilliant team – Federico, ‘Paddy’, and Eugenio Garza Perez, who is trained by Eddie Macken, are amateurs in the sport, meaning they have other jobs or “basically have to pay for it” as Federico so blatantly put it. Californian-based Enrique Gonzalez was the only ‘professional’ on the team.

Their chef d’equipe Stanny van Paesschen showed a lot of emotion too. It was clear to see how much he really cares about his ‘job’ and his team.

He remarked that his son, Belgian international show jumper Constant, who was competing on the Global Champions Tour in Valkenswaard, would be upset with him that night because he didn’t call to see how he got on.

When he watches back the joy that victory brought his father, I think all will be forgiven.

I am patriotic and was of course willing our Irish boys to win, but there could not have been a better feel-good story than last Friday.