One of the biggest Irish success stories at last year’s Cheltenham Festival was Flooring Porter who led from pillar to post at odds of 12/1 in the Stayers Hurdle.

The seven-year-old had been beaten by an aggregate 142 lengths on his first four starts until he won a maiden hurdle at Bellewstown worth just over €10,000.

He has gone on to win over €300,000 in prize money, including a Grade 1 success at Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival last season.

Ned Hogarty, Kerril Creaven, Alan Sweeney and Tommy Sweeney make up the Flooring Porter Syndicate.

Hogarty runs a flooring business in Roscommon, while Creaven and Sweeney are publicans, hence the name of their star horse.

Speaking to our sister paper The Irish Field, Hogarty said the syndicate was looking forward to getting to Cheltenham this year having been forced to watch it from home last season as the festival went behind closed doors. He said: “That was the only negative last year, not being over to see it live, but we’d settle for it again!

“We had two televisions in the house, one was a few seconds behind the other, so some cheered it in before others, but it didn’t matter, at that stage we knew. And we were just gone mad.

“He’s a household name now in Ballinasloe.

“We’ve a shop in Ballinasloe and in Galway city, in the carpentry and flooring business, and I’ve a picture of him above the till in both shops, and you’d even have people buying a can of paint saying, ‘Flooring Porter paid for that’.”

Flooring Porter is favourite with most bookmakers to defend his title in an open renewal. His trainer Gavin Cromwell has just started to hit form again which could be significant.

On Friday, Gordon Elliott’s Galvin is one of a strong Irish contingent in the Gold Cup. He is sandwiched in between the Henry de Bromhead-trained pair A Plus Tard and Minella Indo, who finished second and first respectively in the race last season.

A win for any Irish runner would make it six Gold Cups in seven years for the visitors.