They say the bookies are flying their flags at half mast down Kildare way these days, that they could be down to their last million, and that anyone living within a 10-mile radius of Kill will be taking at least three holidays before Christmas. As Ted Walsh himself puts it, "when your luck is in, your cow will calf - and have a bull as well."

Well, Walsh's cow has had triplets recently and there hasn't been a heifer in sight. And, to the dismay of the bookies, it seems most of the trainer's neighbours had a pound or £20 on each bull.

The third arrived on Wednesday when Commanche Court won the Heineken Gold Cup at Punchestown, 10 days after the same horse won the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse and less than a month after Papillon won the English National at Aintree. Word has it that Walsh's middle initial of M stands for Midas.

Better still, his 20-year-old son, Ruby, was on board the winner in all three races, becoming the first jockey since Tommy Carberry in 1975 to land the national double, with his father the first man to have trained the winners of both races in a season.

"I'm not normally short of words but I'm close now," he said after their Aintree triumph. By Wednesday he should have been struck dumb but as Ruby once said, "you can't stop him talking at the best of times".

A native of Fermoy, Co Cork, now based in Kill, Co Kildare, Ted Walsh was Irish amateur champion jockey 11 times and rode four Cheltenham winners, including Hilly Way in the 1979 Queen Mother Champion Chase. However, for those unfamiliar with the horse racing world it was his "talking" which first brought him to their attention.

"I know that horse well, I rode his mother" is perhaps the highlight of his commentating career with RTE so far but he's come out with enough gems to merit a Ted Walsh Book Of Quotes at this stage.

"A great looking horse he is - a bit like the good-looking male, shows off well but when you put the gun to his head there's not a whole lot there" was another of his many memorable on-air assessments of the character of a horse.

Ironically enough, the horse in question was Papillon which was about to run in the 1998 Irish Grand National. Luckily for Ted and Ruby, there was plenty there when the good-looker approached the winning post at Aintree last month.

Three years ago he left Gay Byrne a little green around the gills when he appeared on the Late Late Show and spoke about the castration of Commanche Run, which had given him his first major success as a trainer when he won the 1997 Triumph Hurdle, a victory, he said, which "changed our lives".

"For those in the audience who have a pair of how's-your-fathers if you got a rub of a yard brush across them you'd be inclined to twinch a little bit, so we felt it would be better to take them away," he said. The audience shifted uncomfortably and laughed nervously.

Walsh sat a bit uncomfortably himself at Aintree as he watched the Grand National from the box of J. P. McManus. "I am not a nervous person," he said, "but, by Jesus, I could hardly look at it. I was on a double edge. I hoped the horse would run well but you must remember blood is thicker than water. I was very nervous for Ruby. He is only 20 and I was hoping things would go right for him."

It wouldn't have been the first time he worried for Ruby after the young jockey broke a collarbone and fractured a leg in the space of 10 days last September. Ted's wife Helen, daughter Katie and other son, Ted jnr, also looked on anxiously but at the end of the race he was able to say "the gods have been smiling on the Walsh family today".

Ted jnr was the first to greet Ruby after he crossed the winning line. He had had ambitions to be a jockey too but nature got in the way - he grew beyond jockey proportions. These days he plays as a prop forward for Naas rugby football club.

When he was just 13 a visitor to the house took a look at him and said: "Well, you're not going to be a jockey anyway." "At least he is not going to be a squirt, like you and me," said his father.

A "squirt" maybe, but after the last month a giant in the horse racing world.