Racing is another country. They do things differently there. Earlier anyway. The electronic gates open. The black jacket security man materialises against the early morning charcoal.

"Straight on up, Benny," crackles Aidan O'Brien's voice over the walkie-talkie.

"Straight on up," instructs Benny, "and if you see a horse anywhere stop and kill your engine."

And away into the heart of Ballydoyle. Past the looming statue of Nijinsky, up the long road to the cluster of stables and barns that are the hub of life here. The flat horses are circling on the loam in a lofty barn. An endless almost unbroken circle of them, they issue great cloudy snorts of warm breath into the cool morning air and for a minute to see them is to be Jeff Goldblum getting the first sighting of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

The stable staff sit atop them, stiff-backed and slow-eyed in the early light. They look as of they could do this slow walk forever.

The jumpers, just a half dozen of them these days, are off some place else just now. They live apart from the flat racers down amidst the jolly blue painted halfdoors of Margot's Yard in one corner of this lovely fold of Tipp countryside.

"Jumpers have different schedules and different temperaments," it is explained. Perhaps they smoke and drink.

The flat horses circle in their steady hypnotic rhythm. In the middle of the barn's early morning gloaming the red tail lights of a jeep can be picked out. The Boss. Aidan O'Brien spots the newcomers, waits for a gap in the procession and beckons us inwards.

He is a small man, jockey's build if not a hand or two higher, and he exudes an authority and bearing that is almost military in its clipped style. Throughout the morning he will talk about the teamwork at Ballydoyle, the sense of interdependence that all the inhabitants have on each other, but there is only one Master, one terminus where the buck always stops.

He is just 29, which is startling enough given the huge legends which have barnacled themselves to his name, yet he looks younger. Unblinking, intense yet controlled.

"It's a fresh one isn't it," he says and we nod, not knowing if they are all fresh or not.

Each horse looks identical in the dust-moted light. For warmth each is wearing their striped blanket with the AP O'B logo stitched into the corner. Some have a distinctive blaize, but they all have the cut, almost sculptured look of athletes or ballet dancers.

Aidan O'Brien stands and quietly names each horse as it passes, giving a concise biography of each animal. This is as chatty as O'Brien gets. He studiously avoids anything resembling hubris and questions about his training techniques usually draw short oblique answers and the little kicker "just makes sense, doesn't it?" or "do you understand what I'm saying".

The tape recorder won't be spilling over with anecdotes on the journey home, but the trip is about understanding, getting the feel of this world. O'Brien, understated and quiet in a very Wexford way, wasn't born to this world of high rolling and grandstanding.

They used to say that nothing brings out the boor in a man quicker than his first good horse. O'Brien's quiet nature has inoculated him against that.

He has been up and out since 6.15 a.m., an announcement which diminishes the sense of martyrdom among the visitors. His face is fresh and content beneath a navy baseball cap. He smells pleasantly of aftershave. He separates the group according to task. A photographer is dispatched to a watching post where he might get a good shot of the star of the day, Istabraq. The flat horses begin filing out. The rest of us await our instructions.

We are encouraged into the jeep along with Tommy Murphy, assistant trainer, and Joseph O'Brien, five-year-old son of Aidan, who has muffled and wrapped well for the morning portion of this idyllic life of his growing up amidst the horses.

O'Brien drives us out of the barn and on to one of the little roads which runs like veins around the acreage. He stops there awhile, seemingly unaccountably. Before he pulls away you notice he has been getting his jeep filled with fuel from his own petrol pump. Before you came here they told you about the airstrip and the horseflesh and the sublime facilities, but a petrol pump. Nice touch.

Ballydoyle reveals itself like an equine theme park. O'Brien trucking around in the jeep, apparently aimlessly, pokes out and parks in a succession of spots just in time to see his line of horses go past. The realisation dawns quickly that precious few minutes in Aidan O'Brien's days are wasted.

He took over Ballydoyle in 1995, transferring the bulk of his operation from Piltown to this mecca of Irish horse-training when John Magnier invited him down to make use of the facilities.

Today the string comprises about 100 flat horses, all of impeccably pedigree.

O'Brien has a love of Ballydoyle and its dependable rhythms and rare beauty which suggest that this is a spiritual as well as physical home.

"There is something about Ballydoyle. It keeps the horses focused and alert. It challenges them every day and you just see them getting fitter. It's the perfect place for them."

And for him. He seldom travels to races any more.

"My work is here. If I do it properly I don't have to be at the races. I don't enjoy travel too much anyway."

Vincent O'Brien (with whom he doesn't share a bloodline) bought these acres under the crook of Sleivenamon back in 1951 and it has been horse country ever since. It is a place which thieves the breath. Gallops and tracks rolling off across the gentle hills, queues of horses about their daily business, a quiet industry which keeps itself close to nature.

The flat racers are in a long long line now, walking the road way towards their undulating gallop. O'Brien nips ahead of them every now and then.

"Okay, Pat? Okay, Nadine? Okay, John? Okay, Michael? Nice and easy . . . ." And inside every greeting is wrapped a hint of inquiry. The words allow him a quick flashing inspection of horse and rider.

It takes maybe two or three seconds for a horse to amble past. O'Brien processes everything he sees like a whirring computer. He processes it instead of a computer in fact.

"We wouldn't keep it all on database or whatever," he says. "This is our day to day business. I know in my head how they are going and what they are aiming for. Day in and day out till it becomes second nature. You see if the horse is happy, if it's stiff, uneasy. You know what to look for."

The talk on the drive bounces between Tommy and Aidan mainly, with young Joseph making occasional polite corrections on the biographical details of each horse. Three generations of horsemen. There is an easy friendship there and O'Brien constantly defers to the older man's knowledge.

"Those Sadler's Wells horses, they keep getting stronger for longer don't they Tommy."

"They do, they got bigger and stronger every year."

"Istabraq's ahead of where she was last year, I'd say Tommy."

"I'd say that all right, Aidan. Bigger, too."

THEN AN astonishing thing happens. We are talking about Istabraq, the wonderhorse, and without saying anything O'Brien turns the jeep, points it to head down the gallop. You are looking straight ahead, but to the right is the percussion of pounding hooves. Istabraq and Theatreworld lead the jumpers off down their mile and a furlong morning gallop.

Startlingly, the horses are just the other side of the white rail, inches away. Touchable if that wasn't such a trespass.

Big brown eyes alive with excitement. Necks strained forward. Pat Lillis up on Istabraq. Hoof music. Thumpety, thumpety, thump.

They are building towards full tilt. Theatreworld, wide-eyed and snorting, as he stretches his limbs full and furious. Istabraq, self-contained and peaceful, just eating the slipstream. The two stable lads like little commas on top of the flying animals. The clock on Aidan O'Brien's jeep tips 40 miles per hour. Theatreworld is flat out like an Olympic sprinter, but even to this untutored eye Istabraq is taking it in his stride, still within his gears.

These elemental moments, as the sun struggles for purchase and the horses pound the earth, are hypnotic. O'Brien manages the remarkable feat of being absorbed totally in the mechanics of the racers while steering the jeep effortlessly down the track. This is what this life is all about, the heart of it.

"Looks good, Pat," O'Brien calls up to the rider when they walk out finding regular breath again.

"Keen for it this morning, Aidan."

Istabraq is a creature of mood and habit. Pat Lillis is the only rider the horse knows apart from Charlie Swan who is in the saddle on race days. O'Brien chose Lillis for his intuitive knowledge of horses and for his own temperament.

"Pat would know horses and he would be good at reading their moods, how they are feeling, if there is something bothering them.

"He is good at getting that and communicating it. He suits Istabraq's personality, too. There is no point in teaming an aggressive horse with an aggressive rider, they'll annoy each other. The pair of them complement each other. Pat is quiet and takes it in his stride."

Istabraq is weighing in at 510 kilos, heavier than he has been on previous journeys to Cheltenham. The weight expresses itself as pure strength. Most days he spends in the company of Theatreworld. He will be transported the day before to facilitate his progress through Cheltenham traffic on race day.

"The sort of horse he is, he gets moody and highly strung. You'd prefer to move him on the day of the race, but with Cheltenham you'd never get into the place. Istabraq just likes to be left alone. He has his habits. He knows Theatreworld and he'd be kept together with him and with people he knows. No surprises. Being highly strung he'd leave form behind him very quick."

Istabraq is unusual in that he keeps improving long past the point where he should plateau. O'Brien is constantly amazed by him. Cheltenham is still 12 or so days away this morning as we talk. Istabraq is already unbackable but: "Lot of work to be done between now and then," says O'Brien. "Whole lot of work."

This morning's work, though, is reaching a hiatus now, with the horses heading back to the yards. We are rejoined by the photographer, somewhat envious at having missed the chance at shooting from the jeep "Well," says O'Brien matter-offactly, "sometimes a lens would give a glare which would startle a horse. We had one strained a leg here a few years ago and I'd be a bit of a coward now about ringing JP McManus with that sort of news."

No news is very good news for McManus in the run up to Cheltenham. O'Brien doesn't wear a face which betrays signs of pressure, but piloting the form of so many rich men's playthings must take its toll.

"Pressure?" he says playing with the word as if it were an old toy. "Well the easy month is December. From January on it's work and races all the way through. You wouldn't be putting too much weight on anyway. It's a lot of pressure, yeah."

Ballydoyle has about 80 staff, who live in enjoying facilities which include tennis and squash courts. O'Brien and his family live in a lovely low-slung house in one corner of the place. With half a day's work done he walks in among the morning fuss of getting kids breakfasted and to school or nursery. The breakfast room is sunlit and inviting. Horse books line the wall from the Turf Guide to the Horse Whisperer. Joseph is away to school, and before his father has lifted his first slice of toast he is deep into the racing paper, absorbing more of this world which will eventually revolve around him.