MEET the man who has come from the bottom of the Mourne mountains in Co Down and has the peak of Australian racing in his sight.

Peter Trainor only bought Future History just over a year ago and now the five-year-old is a live hope in the Melbourne Cup, which takes place at 4.00am Irish time tonight.

Hollie Doyle will become the first female jockey outside of Australia and New Zealand to ride in the race when she partners the gelding, trading at AUS$25 chance on the TAB in Australia last night, from barrier 13.

“Basically, I bought the horse at the October Horses-In-Training Sale last October with the sole purpose of racing him in Australia,” Trainor takes up the story. “I just wanted to feel my way there and understand how the racing works.

“I’d always admired Ciaron Maher from a distance, always like the way he comes across, his methodology and the way he thinks about things. I bumped into him at Ascot last year and said I was going to send him a horse. I’m sure people meet him and say that to him every day but I actually did send this horse down."

Future History won twice in France for Henri-Francois Devin but he has taken his form to a new level for Maher and his training partner David Eustace, hitting the frame on all five starts in Australia and there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about his chances in the Melbourne Cup tonight as Trainor explains.

“We gave him time to acclimatise and earlier this year he had a couple of jump outs, like barrier trials at home, over short distances. They do a lot of data analysis here and his data was coming back quite impressive - his resting heart rate, his recovery rate, his stride length - and it all pointed towards him being a stayer. He’s not bred for that, he’s by Showcasing, but if you’re going to look at data, you might as well use it.

“He ran well on his first two starts for it, one of them was over a shorter trip but on his third run, he won impressively at Moonee Valley in September. He did a very good time and then his data improved again. His recovery was almost immediate.

“We were going to go for the Group 1 Metropolitan but instead went to the Bart Cummings for the win-and-you’re-in for the Cup. Lucky enough he won and he got his golden ticket.

“He’s had one run since, the Group 2 Moonee Valley Cup in October which was his best run to date in Australia over 2500m (just over a mile and a half). He finished third to Cleveland in a bunch finish, so he escaped a penalty because he didn’t win but it was his best run since he arrived in Australia. He can now race off his earlier allotted weight in the Cup, which is six kilos lighter.”

Trainor lives in Longstone, Co Down but works half his week in London where he has his own business which provides tiling, stone and granite to office blocks in the city. He has owned horses in Ireland and Britain, including Ibrahimovic, who is trained by Michael Bell and finished second in the Ulster Derby in June.

“I have the few horses in Britain now mostly as a social thing - it gave me something to do on a Tuesday or a Thursday night at Kempton,” Trainor explains. “Oisin Murphy and Jamie Spencer would be two friends of mine. I sort of moved them over kind of hoping they’d be okay to ride them and it was kind of a social thing more than anything.

“I’ve had a few two-year-olds that have won first time out and I’ve flipped them on and Ibrahimovic was a good horse for me. He has since been sold to Kris Lees in Sydney. The market for stayers in Australia is really big.”

Trainor has also experienced that demand first hand with Future History, who unsurprisingly attracted a lot of attention from local owners after earning a guaranteed spot in the Cup.

“It’s very rare to have a sole owner here,” he explains. “Usually horses are owned in five or even 10 shares. Ciaron was inundated with requests from his owners to see if there would be a possibility of buying into the horse.

“What Ciaron advised me to do was to put a 10% share online in a sale and that will give me a base of what value he is. I dealt with a girl from Inglis, the sales company here, called Aisling, born to parents from Co Clare. It just goes to show you, you’re never far from someone linked to home. She was brilliant to deal with.

“The 10% went for AUS$205,000 and I’ve since sold two more 10% shares. I met three different guys on Friday. One of them is called Mick Burns, a famous crocodile hunter over here with an amazing story.

“It’s been all go since Friday - an unbelievable experience from seeing the horse, to drawing the barrier, the various events and now the parade in the city on Monday.”

Vauban remains all the rage for the Melbourne Cup tonight with the very positive vibes emanating from the Mullins camp. Ebor winner Absurde will also represent Mullins. It’s 30 years since Vintage Crop provided Ireland with a famous, ground-breaking win in the race.

“Could Ireland do it again?” Trainor says. “I do believe Vauban will be hard to beat. If it’s not me to win it, I really hope it’s Willie because I would like to see it coming back to Ireland. I do believe in my heart of hearts it will be an Irish winner.

“Whenever my horse was entered, I asked my brother who lives here to back him for me and he got him at 100/1. He’s now 20/1 and I think he could go off half that. We’ve got a chance.”

Full Cup report and colour in The Irish Field this weekend plus in depth previews for the top class jumps action at Down Royal