Ted Walsh was born on April 14th, 1950. Forty-three years later, Commanche Court, the best horse he has trained and a leading contender for today's Tote Gold Trophy, was foaled on April 14th. Just a neat coincidence, except that in racing neat coincidences have a habit of paying off. Illogical and superstitious maybe, but racing's illogical twists have always encouraged such superstitions.

Ted Walsh appreciates them. They are part and parcel of a sport that has consumed his life. An in-your-face, no-nonsense man he might be, but the infuriatingly unpredictable sport of racing is too big a brute to allow any edge to be ignored, real or imagined. Thanks to him, many more now have an appreciation for that elusive edge.

"The man has introduced thousands of Irish people to Irish racing because of his comments. He is the Irish countryman's man. He just cannot come out with the usual bullshit when he's on television," says Walsh's close friend and fellow trainer Enda Bolger.

That is the most common perception of the man who was champion amateur rider 11 times and who is a highly successful trainer of a small string of racehorses at his stables in Kill, Co Kildare.

The man who really has been there, done that and collected enough T-shirts to make Taiwan tremble; the man whose colourful use of the English language has provoked much mirth but more affection; the man who calls it as he sees it, a quality which in this politically-correct age has made him a character to savour.

RTE's head of sport, Tim O'Connor was the first to see how Walsh could become a TV natural. "We have kept him in his present role to preserve his most outstanding qualities: veracity and honesty. We couldn't use him as a straight presenter because there is no element of theatricality in him."

RTE couldn't have moulded a better persona. Forthright and confident, he a conspiratorial, roguish grin that doesn't so much hint as shout when he comes up against the constraints of libel and slander. Walsh freely admits that his real job and his real love is training racehorses, yet that only adds to his shoot-from-the-lip appeal. It's only what the public expect from their insider. The man whose life really is racing.

It was always likely to be so. Fermoy, where he was born, is in the centre of north Cork where steeplechasing first originated 200 years ago and where its most faithful model, point-to-pointing, still thrives. After an 18-month spell in the mid-50s, when the Walsh family lived in America, they returned to Ireland and Walsh's father, Ruby, rented a yard in Chapelizod. With an astute and respected trainer as a father, young Walsh's life seemed clear except nobody could have foreseen his future impact as a jockey.

"Ted had the best racing brain of any jockey, professional or amateur, I ever rode against. He wasn't the most stylish, but his brain made up for everything," remembers Enda Bolger. It was a vintage crop of amateur riders who were professional in everything but name, yet Walsh was easily the most successful.

Big race wins included the 1979 Champion Chase at Cheltenham on Hilly Way and Kim Muir wins on Prolan and Castleruddery. When Daring Run started favourite for the 1981 Champion Hurdle, nobody pointed to his amateur rider as a possible weak link, even after Walsh was unseated during the race. Walsh really made his reputation though as the man to have on your horse when the money was down in bumpers. Winning was everything and Walsh's strength in the saddle was awesome.

"If he was riding under the whip rules now, he'd have been champion amateur five times instead of 11 because he would have been permanently suspended. He had the physical strength of a wrestler, but my God could he use the stick," says one racing insider who jokes of Walsh's fourth Cheltenham winner: "Attitude Adjuster was appropriately named for the prince of force's last ride over fences."

That came in 1986, three years after Walsh had established his link with RTE sport. As a regular interviewee, he had impressed with his turn of phrase and sense of fun, so he was given his head reviewing races and doing paddock commentaries. With the suave Robert Hall as his straight man, Walsh's down-to-earth delivery caught the public imagination.

Soon even those who knew nothing about racing knew about the guy who had announced on television that he had "rode her mother up the Curragh". RTE had uncovered someone who seemed permanently on the edge of exploding into effing and blinding indignation when witnessing something he disagreed with and people loved it. He spoke their language, even when mispronouncing the 1995 Irish Derby third Anus Mirabilis into something Queen Elizabeth had never intended.

"He's very good on television," says top trainer and Walsh's former riding rival Dermot Weld. "He's blunt, he tells it as he sees it and he's mostly accurate. Sure, some people take offence at what he says, but I think it's for the betterment of racing that he appeals to a wide audience."

Those who have taken offence at Walsh's penchant for telling it as he sees it include racing's authorities who have occasionally been at the receiving end of some blunt criticism.

One source close to the Irish Horseracing Authority says: "He is seen as an irritant at times. Sometimes he shoots from the hip without thinking what he says through and I'm sure he would admit that himself. I think that authority in racing is for him sometimes petty in how it handles itself. However, he is heeded. Very few ignore him. There could a danger that some people might see him as just an entertainer, an Irish John McCririck if you like with all that `I rode the mother stuff', but that is mostly not the case."

It certainly hasn't been the case according to Tim O'Connor who says: "He certainly was not everyone's popular choice as a racing pundit. There was some criticism of Ted's performances and I was subject to a considerable amount of criticism from some people I was dealing with in the racing industry. That's an attitude you find in most sporting organisations. Very occasionally he is over robust and not entirely balanced in his comments, but I would rather deal with someone on the edge, who is volatile and exciting, than someone who censures himself and is bland or indifferent."

Some racing people contacted for this article say they have noticed a slight tendency for Walsh to "play to the gallery" in some of his television work, but the vast majority pointed to his viewing of issues in black and white, never grey.

"There's no hidden agenda with Ted. What you see is what you get," says Weld. "He speaks his mind which is something that's easy to respect and appreciate," says champion jockey Charlie Swan, while Enda Bolger comments: "You have to accept Ted as he is. When he says something he believes it completely. There's no argument. There can't be because it's impossible to argue with the guy."

Significantly, Tim O'Connor also points out that while Walsh may be a racing man through and through, he is not without perspective.

"In one of his first television appearances in 1983, we still had a minute to fill so I told Brendan O'Reilly to ask him about the Shergar kidnapping. Brendan fed him the line `it's tragic about Shergar' and Ted replied that it wasn't tragic at all. It was a great pity, but Shergar was only a horse. It would be a tragedy if it had been a child. It was on one of his first television appearances and he was probably nervous, but his perspectives were right," he says.

Should Commanche Court win today, however, perspective is likely to take a back seat. As Ted Walsh might say, racing is too tough a bugger to leave the high points uncelebrated.