Jonjo O Neill

Jonjo O’Neill

DOB: April 13, 1952.

Jonjo was a highly successful jump jockey and has established himself at the top of the training ranks in recent seasons.

In spite of an appalling list of injuries, he was champion jockey on two occasions (1977/78 and 1979/80), and he set a then record for a season of 149 winners in his first championship year. The most sensational moment of his riding career came when he won the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Dawn Run in 1986 as the mare became the only horse to win that trophy after having previously taken the Champion Hurdle (1984), also with O’Neill in the saddle. He also won the Gold Cup on Alverton in 1979, though he had a dreadful record in the Grand National, in which he never completed the course in spite of having had a number of fancied rides.

He retired from the saddle at the end of the 1985/86 season and, having survived lymphatic cancer not long after that, started training near Penrith, Cumbria, in 1987. He forged a reputation with horses such as Vicario Di Bray, winner of the 1989 Champion Hurdle Trial at Haydock, and Legal Right, who landed the Grade Three Tripleprint (now Boylesports) Gold Cup at Cheltenham in 1999 and went on to capture the BGC Silver Cup at Ascot as well as the Grade Two Tommy Whittle Chase.

He moved to his present base at Jackdaws Castle in Gloucestershire, not far from Cheltenham, when the yard was bought by owner J P McManus in 2001. His 16 Cheltenham victories include five wins in the National Hunt Chase, the JCB Triumph Hurdle with Spectroscope, the 2004 Ladbrokes World Hurdle with Iris’s Gift and the RSA Chase with Albertas Run in 2007.

His victories at the Aintree Festival as a trainer include Quazar in the John Smith’s Anniversary 4YO Novices’ Hurdle in 2002, Clan Royal in the 2003 John Smith’s Topham Chase, Iris’s Gift (2003) and Black Jack Ketchum (2006) in the Citroen C5 Sefton Novices’ Hurdle, Iris’s Gift in the 2004 John Smith’s Liverpool Long Distance Hurdle and Exotic Dancer (2007) in the totesport Bowl

Cheltenham Festival wins (16).

Pertemps Final: 1991 Danny Connors, 2003 Inching Closer, 2004 Creon

NH Chase: 1995 Front Line, 2002 Rith Dubh, 2003 Sudden Shock, 2004, Native Emperor, 2007 Butler’s Cabin

Vincent O’Brien County: 2000 Master Tern

JCB Triumph: 2003 Spectroscope

Ladbrokes World: 2004 Iris’s Gift

Albert Bartlett: 2006 Black Jack Ketchum, 2007 Wichita Lineman

Christie’s Foxhunter: 2007 Drombeag

RSA Chase: 2008 Albertas Run

William Hill: 2009 Wichita Lineman