It's asked during every edition of A Question Of Sport but it's never really answered. When the cameras were turned off, when the crowds went away, when the only companion was regret . . . what happened next?

As soon as Roger Loughran stood up 70 yards too early on Central House at the Leopardstown Christmas meeting, it didn't take much working out that his name would pass Sue Barker's lips eventually. Last Sunday at Punchestown, he gave her a more substantial answer than Ally McCoist ever could.

What happened next was that he put his head down, kept his mouth shut and worked at trying to make it up to Dessie Hughes and John Kenny, the horse's trainer and owner. He served his suspension and came back to partner the same horse to beat Jim and Accordion Etoile and now he'll go to Cheltenham next month to take on Moscow Flyer and Kauto Star in the Champion Chase.

Loughran was laughed at and ridiculed in some quarters, felt for and sympathised with in most. He took up more column inches for a split second's misjudgement than he had for the guts of a decade of trying to earn himself a career. He even made the racing pages of the Sydney Morning Herald. Famous. Infamous.

Hard to decide which just yet.

He sits down in a bar in Kildare town, a glass of still water in front of him and one of those unfulfilling anonymous days in the saddle behind him. It's just gone 8.30 on Wednesday night and he's only off the road a short while, having driven back from Downpatrick where his only ride of the day threw him off for his trouble. Another nothing day down in a career not short of them. A characterbuilder, a dues-payer. One to make the sugar-coated days sweeter still.

"Last Sunday was a great day, " he says. "The horse was brilliant, he did everything asked of him. You couldn't ask for anything more in the way he ran and won. And the reception from the crowd was just amazing. Just shows you what people are really like.

Especially after what happened at Leopardstown."

Which is why you're here, of course. There's plenty you don't know about Roger Loughran . . . about how he left school at 15 like countless other kids of the Curragh to sign up for the only life he wanted; about how he's never reached the heights of your Walshes or your Geraghtys even though they're more or less his age; about how three broken legs have held him back more than he's prepared to admit; about how his innate politeness and humility leads him to say the phrase "the boss" 13 times during the interview without ever once saying the name Dessie. But you don't want to hear about all that, or at least not as much as you want to hear about the one thing everyone knows about. Loughran doesn't mind too much. He can understand people being curious.

"It was a human error, " he says. "That's all it was. Just one of those things. I don't know why it happened. We jumped the last after meeting it wrong and it sent us back a bit. And I was just after getting my horse right again and getting him going. I knew I had everything on my righthand side covered and I was just keeping a look to the left under my arm. And as I passed the end of the running rail on my inside . . . I don't know, it just hit me that that was the winning post. So I stood up.

"That was a big race, a big Christmas race and the boss and the owner trusted me with their horse and I let them down. I just really thought I won. But after about 10 strides or so, I saw the winning post up ahead of me. Ah, sick . . . I was just sick when I realised what I'd done."

It was traumatic and it was horrible but what he remembers most about it is people's kindness and understanding.

Barry Geraghty rode straight over to him, held by the arm and told him not to worry, that things could be a lot worse. Ted Walsh defended him straight away on RTE television and rang him later that night with a pep talk.

Most importantly, Hughes and Kenny promised him that once his suspension was up, the ride would still be his.

"As soon as I heard that, it lifted me totally and gave me something to aim for. And that was the last word that was said about it between us.

During the suspension, I just worked away in the yard, kept my head down and kept working for the boss. There was no point feeling sorry for myself.

It was my fault and I paid the price.

"Most of the crowd that day were sympathetic and I totally understand the ones who weren't. And the rest of the jockeys were brilliant to me.

There was no slagging. They wouldn't slag you about a thing like that."

And so. Famous? Infamous?

Depends on what happens next. If the rest of Loughran's career is made up of days like Wednesday, days of 250-mile round-trips just to be thrown off on his arse, then infamy beckons. But if he manages to steer Central House to win at the festival . . . where his only previous ride was a highly creditable third in the Kim Muir aboard Rathbawn Prince three years ago . . . Leopardstown will be no more than a quirky footnote.

"It's in the back of my mind all the time that this horse can win the Queen Mother.

That would be a dream altogether and I wouldn't swap him for anything else in the race. But I can't be thinking of that at this stage. You have to take these things day by day and I have other rides to worry about before then. On top of that, I have all my work to do for the boss and if I start thinking too far ahead, I could get distracted."

No danger of that. Not after what happened the last time he got ahead of himself.