Retirement for some means throwing in the towel and putting oneâs feet up for a long-overdue rest. For others itâs just a case of changing tack. When the racehorse trainer and jockey Tom Taaffe announced his retirement, calling time on his 27-year career, earlier this month, he was not putting himself out to pasture. Instead the man who handled the career of the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Kicking King is chatting about his home aboard a tractor while âharrowing a gallopâ on the 43 acres that surround his home in Straffan, Co Kildare. Tom Taaffe with Kicking King at Punchestown in 2005. Photograph: Tom Honan/Inpho