It was business as usual yesterday at Cian O'Connor's Karlswood Stables between Ashbourne and Swords, where only the sight of a group of journalists suggested something was amiss.
A steady stream of mothers dropped off hard-hatted daughters, while staff supervised riding lessons or fed and watered horses. Nobody wanted to talk.
In the car-park, stable vehicles were chatty with slogans, including the famous "Working Towards the Summer Olympics 2004" and "Karlswood: Probably the Best Stable in Ireland".
They also advertised the website www.cianoconnor.com, and the gold medallist's mobile phone number. But he wasn't answering the latter yesterday. He had left Karlswood at 7 a.m., staff said, and wasn't expected back.
Word had it that Waterford Crystal was in his box, in a yard marked "Private". Photographers perked up when some well-groomed horses were led out to a mechanised walker - an enclosed carousel in which the show-jumpers are exercised. But none of the horses in the identity parade looked familiar.
A local vet, Mr Con Kennedy, a member of the Irish equestrian delegation at the Sydney Olympics, arrived at the stables and spoke to journalists.
The hopeful scenario, he said, was that the sedative found in Athens was the one administered weeks before the Olympics, in which case the amounts involved must be "very minute". Show-jumping was an "explosive" sport, "and you don't jump a sedated horse", he said.
"If it is a minute amount, Cian should get a rap on the knuckles and it should be left at that," he believed.
At the nearby Rolestown Inn, the racing channel's review of the meeting at Gowran Park took precedence over the start of the Six One news, and when someone did switch over, Charlie Bird's report on the crisis was ignored by most customers.
Noticing the presence of a reporter, a member of staff turned up the volume.
"It's very sad. They'll probably take the gold medal off him," he commented.
A wall of the lounge was dedicated to an equestrian picture gallery, with pride of place for a portrait of Istabraq autographed by Charlie Swan.
All the pictures were of race-horses, although it emerged that the bar was planning to add Waterford Crystal soon.
"It's still being framed," said the barman.