"Because if I don't have winners at Cheltenham I'll be out of here."

Here is not just any horse racing establishment. It is Jackdaws Castle, 500 acres of it, deep in the Cotswolds, and the most fabulouslyappointed National Hunt training stables in the land, so much so that it really ought to feature prominently on a list of the world's great hotels.

Perhaps in a special section allocated to five-star luxury for our four-legged friends, with its swimming pool which includes three solariums and therapy rooms.

"There's always pressure on you to have winners, " O'Neill adds. "You put it on yourself mainly, don't you?

But if I don't have winners, then I won't be getting the horses, so how do you think I'm going to pay for the rent on this place? I have to have winners."

Surely, it is inconceivable that owners . . . and by that we refer principally to his landlord, the enigmatic and guarded JP McManus, who reportedly paid 5.8 million for this equine pile . . . could lose faith in an icon of the turf?

A man who secured two National Hunt jockeys' championships during a career in which his association with the 1986 Gold Cup-winning mare Dawn Run and 1980 Champion Hurdler Sea Pigeon will always be writ large and indelibly in the sport's chronicles.

Yet, just as a football manager's distinguished playing career won't protect him from the sack, so it is equally true of a racehorse trainer's riding background. In truth, his indomitable character, the only man to win 100 races in a British season as a jockey and a trainer, wouldn't allow him to consider such a fate; not even last season.

A year ago, the stable had just reopened for business after its inmates had been stricken by that catch-all term, the virus, what the vets prefer to diagnose as "a lowgrade bacterial infection".

O'Neill had no runners between Christmas and late February.

"It was difficult for everybody, particularly for the owners and staff, " he says. "It was just a bloody nightmare, to put it bluntly. It was frustrating at the time, but you have to look at the future and kick on with life. Keep looking back, and you'll never get anywhere." The result, however, was that his horses were so far adrift in their preparation when he opened up for business again, that he failed to add to his Cheltenham Festival tally of 10 winners as a trainer.

This season, there is no dirt in the carburettors of his 90plus strong fleet. He is approaching a century of winners for the fourth time in five seasons.

That is not to say that the Cheltenham build-up has been without mishap. Lingo, favourite for the Smurfit Kappa Champion Hurdle, had to be put down after a freak gallops accident. "It was very difficult when we lost Lingo.

He was a great favourite in the yard, " says O'Neill. "A lovely little horse. Everything was going right for him. It just wasn't to be, unfortunately. But when you have livestock, you get deadstock, as they say."

Next week, O'Neill, 53, seeks a balance of fortunes with his team of 15 for Cheltenham.

They include the undefeated Black Jack Ketchum, about whom he is particularly enthusiastic, Refinement, and the McManus-owned Olaso. But many eyes will be scrutinising Iris's Gift, conqueror of Baracouda in the 2004 World Hurdle, and the O'Neill contender for the Totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The grey's participation alone, let alone his chances of winning the race, is the subject of considerable conjecture.

O'Neill claims the nine-yearold is the classiest contender in the race, "a real machine", albeit that despite intensive schooling there is still a touch of the bog-standard comprehensive about some of his jumping. What we do know is that he did not win a steeplechase until last September, and was error-prone when following up with a brace of victories. He fell last time out at the racecourse and has also hit the turf in a recent schooling session.

Not an auspicious preparation. It has been contended that his owner, Bob Lester, former coal man and minder to O'Neill, has persuaded the trainer to persist with attempting to convert Iris's Gift into a chaser. Lester refutes that, and O'Neill's bullishness gives the lie to that suggestion, too, when you raise the issue: If Iris's Gift doesn't win, then who will?

"He will win the Gold Cup, " asserts his trainer. And second? "Positively second: Beef or Salmon." He adds: "The going won't bother him. He's won on good ground and won on heavy. If he puts in a clear round of jumping he's got a live chance."

O'Neill . . . who served his apprenticeship on the flat with Michael Connolly at the Curragh, and moved to England, as a jump jockey, attached to Gordon Richards' yard in 1973 . . . comprehends only too well the precarious nature of the National Hunt code. They ought to call him the Titanium Man, so numerous are the plates which have been inserted in his battered body. He almost lost a leg in 1980, following a fall at Bangor, when a plate in his right leg moved and caused infection.

He received treatment in four hospitals . . . in Wales, England and finally Switzerland . . .

to repair that shattered leg rather than consider the only alternative of amputation, although even that was preferable to the pain "which was gradually weakening me mentally and physically".

He may have imagined that the agonies he underwent over many months, during which time Sea Pigeon would triumph again at Cheltenham in the hands of John Francome, would be the nadir of his life's experiences. If so, he was wrong. Later, he would contract lymphatic cancer. You suspect it wasn't just the treatment he received which enabled this redoubtable character to pull through that ordeal, as well. In comparison to those periods in his life, most of the trials of everyday existence are, for O'Neill, no more than trifling irritants.

He readily jests at the lifestyles of today's jockeys compared with his generation. Even the mighty McCoy, with whom O'Neill bears comparison as a master in the saddle, and now employs through McManus, doesn't escape the humourous barb of his compatriot.

It was in April 2004 that he inveigled McCoy away from Martin Pipe, with whom he had secured no fewer than nine jockeys' championships. The lure is partly financial, but mostly the prospect of partnering the best horses. "He wasn't much good. But we've sorted him out a bit now. Since he joined us, we've made a man of him, " says O'Neill of McCoy, heavy on the sarcasm, as he breaks into laughter.

He does so, you suspect, because he is not entirely at ease under interrogation, but primarily because he learnt long ago that life was not designed to be regarded too seriously; not, anyway, when you have emerged from such darkness into which he has been so frequently pitched.

But how does McCoy compare with the elite of other generations? "He's very good, different class, " O'Neill adds.

"He knows everything; he knows pace, he knows pedigrees. . . you name it he knows it. He's got a great clock in his head. He's an outstanding rider. One of the best we'll ever see."

Leaving McCoy out of it, you'd have to debate into the small hours to convince O'Neill that today's horsemen compare favourably with the men of yesteryear. But then the job description has changed. "We had no mobile phones then (to book rides), and we had no agents, we had to look for our own rides, " he says. "We had to go and ride out and work in the yards.

That's how it's changed. Now they just pull up in a flash car, get on a bloody horse and away they go. It's a great life, isn't it?"

He pauses, before adding, with a mischievous smile: "If only the lads today got a bit fitter, they'd be as good as we were. They're all partying. We never drank or smoked. We went straight home to bed.

They don't go home now.

They've got no homes. . ."

In reality, of course, jump jockeys are as hardy, and as disciplined, a breed now as they were when he was in the saddle in the 70s and early 80s. They will certainly need to be when the action begins under the spectacular backdrop of Cleeve Hill on Tuesday.

If you wonder what memories it will stir when he arrives, maybe of Sea Pigeon jousting with Monksfield, he disappoints you.

"Of course, you remember the good days. You'll never forget those. But you don't want to be dwelling on them, " O'Neill maintains. "You have to kick on and try to make sure there are more days to savour." There will be many who can still recollect his inspired riding of Sea Pigeon, and Dawn Run and Alverton, who will cry hallelujah if he does.