Training racehorses was at first just a hobby for Liam Roche, but he took to the game so well that he is now the new master of the lavish Churn Stables at Blewbury.

The 35-year-old handler hopes to send out his first runners from the state-of-the-art yard next month, having signed a five-year lease to succeed Gerard Butler at the stables owned by Swedish businessman Erik Penser, who lives at Compton Beauchamp, near Wantage.

Having worked for top English trainers Guy Harwood and David Elsworth, plus Irish maestro Edward O’Grady, Roche decided he should get a qualification for a profession, and under the instruction of Martin Leahy he became a master farrier, working at places such as the Irish National Stud.

He then started training about half a dozen horses part-time, before taking out a full licence at the Curragh – Ireland’s largest training centre.

“We started as a bit of a hobby, and we started well and things grew from there,” he adds.

Celtic Warrior gave him his first winner when taking a Leopardstown nursery in November 2005.

“That was a something you always remember,” he says. “I didn’t have too many horses at the time.”

In three years’ training, he saddled around 20 winners, but then his yard was being sold for building development.

And so it was time for Roche, and his wife, Sally, who is 20 years his senior, to move on.

Churn Stables became available, and Roche says: “It is a fabulous place to train horses. Everything you could want is here.”

He will be looking to stable star Billyford to help put him on the map in this country.

A four-time winner, including a €50,000 contest at Dundalk in 2007, the four-year-old had a small abscess in his windpipe operated on after disappointing in the Jersey Stakes at Royal Ascot last year.

“He had a lay-off for four months and now he is absolutely spectacular,” says Sally, about one of the 26 horses in her husband’s 42-strong string she has an interest in.

“Billyford may run at Kempton in a listed race over a mile,” says Liam.

As for his first season on these shores, Liam isn’t setting any targets.

“I don’t want to train horses who have no chance of winning races,” he says. “I want them to be competitive and for them to stay healthy and we will see how we go from there. I am fairly confident they should be OK.”