are we worthy to gaze upon his shadow?

​‘Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me’. Will of Shakespeare wrote that. Quite why, I hath not the intellect to know? Shakespearean scholars will tell you which play it was penned for, the mouth of which character the line falls from, and of all the great actors who has played the character the actor who spoke the line to the greatest acclaim.
It might have been prophesy, written in homage of the coming of the mighty King of Carlow, King Mullins the 2nd. Certainly, the master of Closutton is now as unstoppable as any legendary character in the history plays of the near mythical William Shakespeare.
He came, he saw, he conquered. Once more he conquered. Conquering is what he does. He landed on Scottish shores with a mighty battalion of equine warriors, aided by a squadron of elite horseman. So strong in might, he could leave behind his trusted lieutenants to mind the next thunderous force to cross the waters to land blow after blow on opposition still whimpering and bloodied after the glorious triumph at the Battle of Aintree. Punchestown can wait; Punchestown is another day. The battles of today and tomorrow are the battles that must be won as those days might never come again. Some hope, the British fear!
Behind the twinkling smile and polite demeanour, lies a man of ferocious appetite for triumphal honours. Silver and crystal are his ribbons of victory, his rosettes of conquest. There is no limit to the number of trophies he can carry back to his homeland, though there may be no room large enough to house them. The champagne must flow at Closutton with sweet rapidity, the nibbles forever in need of replenishing; the dishwasher always full with flutes and crystal wine glass.
And he is not replete with his gains; he is not about to offer charity to his English rivals, if rivals, in truth, they are, so superior is he with his cavalry; he has the champion ribbons all but won, yet as long as the English princes have half a chance of knocking him from his perch of champion elect, he will send ever more troops into battle at such unlikely strongholds as Fflos Las, Ludlow and Perth, before the final countdown at Sandown Park. The oncoming battles will be no more than brief skirmishes, no more a battle than a slightly heated Womens Institute meeting, but they must be won, as defeat, after so many successes, is hard to swallow. The heir to the crown will take command of the troop through the next few days, Prince Patrick allowing his genial and sovereign father to relax and plot strategy for his upcoming anointing as King of English National Hunt, while he lengthens the monetary size of his championship victory. The size of a pound coin would be victory enough, yet to win by a hundred-thousand-pound coins would be better.
Of course, Ireland, was conquered many months ago, that anointing could have been done Christmas past. And King Mullins the 2nd is not a man to stand still when there are laurels to be achieved through the summer months. He is not a man to give an inch to his local rivals, in the same manner as he cannot allow foreign rivals a mist of a chance of landing blows on him or his army of elite thoroughbreds. Summer festivals are meat and drink to King Mullins the 2nd, revelries to be enjoyed while the mightiest of his string laze under a warm sun and pick at the best of Irish herbage. 
Between his succession as the wearer of the English crown and the many summer festivals at the likes of Bellowstown, Killarney, Listowel and Galway, there is the not inconsequential matter of slaying the home opposition at Punchestown, now perhaps the most popular theatre of horse racing in either of the kingdoms that are now owned by the mighty King Mullins the 2nd. 
We must concede that we walk in the shadow of the greatest of all-time. Neither of the O’Briens, Vincent or Aidan, can hold a candle to the supremacy the Closutton maestro now enjoys over his contemporaries. He writes his own legend and will be spoken about in awe by horseman for centuries to come. Upon his death, all Ireland might fall as is there anyone who can truly follow him? To think of him as a mere mortal is to do him an unholy injustice and just a bit boring, do you not agree?