Racing is sometimes viewed as a treadmill by the horsemen within the sport, a hamster wheel in which you have to keep moving day in day out. The care and development of any livestock is a 365 day a year operation.

And yet, it’s also a bug that’s not easily cast off, as hunter chase trainer Joe O’Shea has discovered. The Cheshire-based handler, winner of this year’s Cheltenham and Aintree Foxhunters, had declared this his last season due the heart problems, but the prospect of not one, but two, prospective champions in the yard, has encouraged him to tread the boards for one further season.

The 68 year old is not everyone’s cup of tea, with an irascible temper on occasion, but there’s no doubting his eye for a horse or ability to prepare them for the leading races of the hunters’ scene.

He’s been the dominant player at Aintree these past years, first with Cousin Pascal in 2021, then Gracchus de Balme in 2025, and then with a magical double in the two leading Foxhunter Chases with Barton Snow in 2026, who would have tilted at the treble at Stratford last month, but for the early curtailment of the hunters calendar due to the growing risk of equine flu.

Barton Snow prefaced his Cheltenham success with a facile 12l stroll around Ludlow in February, albeit the result was somewhat flattered by the last fence unseat of Prohus Yank, who parted company with Amber Jackson-Fennell. Barton Snow will likely take in the same race at Ludlow in 2027 with a view to winning back-to-back Foxhunters at Cheltenham and Aintree.

O’Shea has discovered that having a horse at the peak of his career has proved an inopportune time to put himself out to grass, despite that his able assistant Hannah Roach is now back from a ban due to a drug infringement.

“How can I walk away? I can’t,” he told the Racing Post, and in truth, one can’t be surprised, since not only does he have Barton Snow to look forward to, but a second prospective champion in Boley Bob, who has only been beaten by one in eight races since winning his maiden in May 12 months ago, including a 7l beating of Phantoms Cave at Kelso in April.

The temptation to take an offer on either horse has been resisted, and both will stay in the amateur division rather than graduating to racing under Rules.