Jessica Harrington has revealed she is battling breast cancer and will not attend this year's Cheltenham Festival.
The leading female trainer in the famous meeting's history and multiple Group One-winner was diagnosed with the disease in October and is currently undergoing chemotherapy.
But Harrington says she "sees light at the end of the tunnel" and is looking forward to Cheltenham, adding that she will be "screaming at the television" from her home in Moone, Co Kildare.
She told Katie Hannon on RTE's Up Front podcast: "I'm going through cancer treatment at the moment. I definitely did a bit of crying when I got the diagnosis and then what I had to go through. I definitely did a bit of crying over it."
Harrington, whose husband Johnny died from cancer in 2014, added: "I did 12 weeks (of treatment), I've only got two more to go. I see light at the end of the tunnel and it's absolutely fantastic."
Despite undergoing treatment, the 76-year-old still manages to get out in her yard most days to see her talented team of horses.
She said: "I've been out in the yard virtually every day. I've had a couple of blips. I got a flu after Christmas and just last week I got a temperature again and had to go into hospital but that just goes with it so that's fine. They get the temperature right with you and away you go again.
"I've been very lucky and I'm very lucky to live in the country. Every morning I get to get up and look at beautiful horses and watch them work so I've been doing that.
"I'm feeling the cold a bit. I haven't been racing because I don't want to go mixing with a lot of people because of getting infections."
Harrington, who has trained horses like Moscow Flyer, Jezki, Sizing John and Supasundae, also spoke about losing her hair and how that has affected her.
She stated: "Your eyebrows go, your eyelashes go. It's lovely, no hair on your body, brilliant.
"There's one very nasty thing about not having any hair, you lose the hair in your nose so your nose drips, which is not very pleasant, but you have to laugh about it.
"When my hair started falling out, I said I can't bear this and I just went off and got my head shaved.
"I'm wearing a wig today. Sometimes I wear a wig, otherwise I just wear a hat and a sort of turban thing. It is what it is. I can't change it."
Harrington says she hasn't had many dark days because "you don't need dark days".
She added: "Having dark days with cancer, cancer might feed on that. That's my attitude so therefore we can't have dark days but if you do have a bit of a blip, you pull yourself up and carry on because there's an awful lot of other people worse than you are."
Having won the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup as a trainer, Harrington really wants to taste victory in the other championship race at the Cheltenham Festival - the Stayers' Hurdle - to complete the set.
The Kildare trainer is set to run Ashdale Bob in the Grade One contest next week, who is 16/1 generally for the race.
She added: "There's one missing. That's the three-mile hurdle. I would love to get it.
"I've actually got one runner in it this year, Ashdale Bob. I'm not certain he'll win, but he could be placed. If everything went right, he has the ability to win that race, but we just need to wait and see."
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