At last the referee has noticed that Seamus Darby has nudged Tommy Doyle in the back, awarded a free out, and secured the coveted five-in-arow. In the Kingdom, more than most, they are painfully aware that true sports legends come in fives. First five European Cups?

Real Madrid. Five-in-a-row at Wimbledon? Bjorn Borg.

Five consecutive Olympic gold medals? Steve Redgrave.

Five World Cups? Brazil. Five Gold Cups? Golden Miller.

The number on Paul McGrath's shirt? Five.

Another legendary 'five' was celebrated last week when Michael Dickinson's 1983 St Patrick's Day feat of training the first five runners home in the Cheltenham Gold Cup was voted the greatest performance in the history of racehorse training. There are no such things as a certainties in racing, but the outcome of this poll was as close as it gets.

Dickinson's brief spell as a National Hunt trainer in Britain in the early-80s was meteoric and memorable. He was something of a cross between Martin Pipe and Henrietta Knight . . . the stable had some serious and numerical firepower but was a cauldron of worry, fuss and fret.

His anxiety in the run up to Cheltenham dropped him a stone in weight, despite only a few months earlier having turned out a world record 12 winners in a single day.

The race was far from a penalty kick for his Poplar House stable. Good horses such as Combs Ditch, Brown Chamberlain and Fifty Dollars More opposed, and the combined starting price for the 'Dickinson Five' was only barely odds on.

The stable star was the previous year's Gold Cup winner and horse of the year, Silver Buck, but the favourite was his younger stablemate, Bregawn. The race itself was uncomplicated. Bregawn led from the start and powered home easily by five lengths, followed by Captain John, Wayward Lad, Silver Buck and Ashley House.

The subsequent stories of the five jockeys are far more interesting than those of the horses. Richard Earnshaw, rider of Silver Buck, became a steward of the Jockey Club, and would no doubt have been disappointed to see colleagues Graham Bradley (Bregawn) and Dermot Browne (Ashley House) warned off for passing privileged information and doping horses. Jonjo O'Neill, who rode Wayward Lad, bravely beat cancer before becoming a top trainer, and Captain John's pilot, David Goulding, chose the only conventional career path. He trains sheepdogs in the north of England.

Dickinson, now 56, had an interesting career path himself. The year after his Cheltenham triumph he transferred to the flat, training exclusively for Robert Sangster at his expensivelybuilt stables. The result was a disaster, and by 1987 he had decamped to Maryland to train American horses and invent a lucrative new artificial racing surface. Amazingly, he then performed another training miracle when he produced Da Hoss to win the Breeders' Cup mile after a two-year lay off with injury. He is known over there as 'The Mad Genius'.

The possibility of a repeat of Dickinson's famous five in any Cheltenham festival event, let alone the Gold Cup, is almost remote enough to be considered non-existent these days. Even if a stable has five that are good enough to run, this season has painfully demonstrated that the chances of getting even a couple to post would be a triumph in itself. In the last five renewals of the Gold Cup, only two trainers have managed to field more than one starter.

Martin Pipe's policy of multiple entries, particularly in the handicap hurdles, could someday produce a freak result. But then again, if you give a room full of monkeys a typewriter and an infinite supply of bananas then one day you will get the collected works of Shakespeare and Ross O'Carroll-Kelly. If there is really a possibility of another famous five, then perhaps the answer might lie closer to home. Bagnelstown in fact.

British trainers look forward to taking on Willie Mullins in the Cheltenham bumper with the same relish that Dick Cheney's old buddies anticipate his quail shooting expeditions. Mullins has already won the race five times, including a spectacular victory with Missed That last year, and he trains five of the top seven quoted in the ante-post lists for this year's race. Each of them have the classic Mullins bumper profile of one race and one win.

All are still possible starters.

The idea mightn't be as daft as it seems. Two years ago he actually did run five in the race, and in the year Joe Cullen won it he saddled three of the first four.

Ballytrim, the current favourite, was known to be a bit of a monster before he won his only start by the length of the straight at Thurles, and the supporting cast of Equus Maximus, Fred's Benefit, Shady Willow and Irish Invader all have great chances in their own right.

Of course all this is fairly unlikely to happen, and by the end of next month's festival Michael Dickinson will almost certainly still be the only trainer to have the achieved a magical first five.

Nevertheless, the next time the breeze blows in from Carlow, have a long careful listen.