Grade 1-winning rider Adrian Heskin retires from the saddle at the age of 32

Dual Cheltenham Festival and multiple Grade 1-winning rider Adrian Heskin has announced his retirement from race-riding at 32 years of age. 

Earlier this season the Kilworth, County Cork native had returned home after spending seven seasons in Britain where he was retained by Max McNeill prior to their split last year. 

Heskin rode 436 winners under rules, enjoying a career-best 54 in Britain during his first term with McNeill in 2016-2017. That season, they combined with the Tom George-trained The Worlds End to win the Sefton Novices' Hurdle at Aintree, and two years later they claimed another major success with the same horse in the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot. 

They also enjoyed significant wins together with Threeunderthrufive and Tritonic. 

However, the ending of their association prompted Heskin's decision to return home, where he has struggled to get a foothold with just four wins to his name, albeit one of those came aboard the Willie Mullins-trained Hauturiere in a Grade 2 novices' chase at Limerick over Christmas.

"After 15 years of race riding I've decided to call an end to my career," Heskin posted in a statement on X on Monday evening. "I'm very proud of my career and achieved far more than I could have imagined as a kid. I rode for the best of trainers on both sides of the Irish Sea and some fantastic owners along the way. Of course, some amazing horses too.

"My love for horses is stronger than ever and I owe everything I have to them. Here's to the future."

Heskin burst onto the scene as Michael Hourigan's latest prodigy a decade and a half ago, becoming the youngest Cheltenham Festival-winning rider when he guided A New Story to victory in the 2010 cross-country race as a 7lb claiming 17-year-old. 

A month later he promptly added the bet365 Gold Cup at Sandown aboard Hourigan's Church Island, and his breakthrough Grade 1 success came on the Mags Mullins-trained Martello Tower for Barry Connell, who retained him at the time.

His last winner came on John Queally's Gaillimh A Run in a maiden hurdle at Tramore last month.

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