'He won and I was a hero but if I'd come off I was finished'

To celebrate Jonjo O'Neill's 70th birthday, we have made this interview from February 2021 free to read. Members' Club Ultimate subscribers have access to fantastic interviews like this every week. Click here to sign up.

It's the time of year when a racing fan's thoughts turn to Cheltenham, and for racing fans of a certain age that invariably includes misty-eyed reminiscences seen through the rose-tinted spectacles of 'those were the days'. If there's one day that requires no such artificial assistance, however, it's that famous one from 1986, when the legendary Dawn Run made the kind of history that nobody present will ever forget.

This was legendary stuff, all right, in the most intensely concentrated sense of the word. Becoming the only horse ever to win a Champion Hurdle and a Gold Cup was something truly remarkable; doing it in front of a wild crowd, carrying a weight of Irish cash, was something else entirely; but the cherry on the top was the man in the saddle, a folk hero from Castletownroche in County Cork, who might have been elevated to the sainthood that very afternoon had the Pope been in the grandstand clutching a winning Tote ticket.

The overhauling of British veteran Wayward Lad in the last gasps of the most significant yardage in jump racing was so perfectly staged as to be beyond partisanship, almost beyond compare, but when Jonjo O'Neill reflects on a riding career that retains a living, breathing presence beyond the record books, it's surprisingly not the first tale that springs to his mind.

Never to be forgotten: Jonjo O'Neill and Dawn Run return to chaotic scenes in the winner's enclosure after the 1986 Gold CupCredit: Getty Images

It's not a lack of appreciation, rather an acknowledgement of gratitude for the benevolent interventions of the gods of racing fortune that maintained his career long enough for that almighty moment to be delivered.

It's not about the big things, the ones that sell autobiographies, most specifically the merciful recovery from cancer that preserved the great man for a long and happy second career as a trainer. It's more about the cupped hands of fate that saved the first spark of a legend from disappearing in a tiny puff of smoke.

The tale begins with a young Jonjo, wavering in a way that's often conveniently forgotten for the purposes of the legend. He'd had his first winners on the Flat, over hurdles and fences, and he'd crossed the Irish Sea early in 1972 to try out for the powerful northern yard of Gordon Richards at Penrith, Cumbria, but the pickings had been slim, so when he was sent to Uttoxeter to ride a moderate mare called Katie J the stakes were rather higher than his confidence, although the race panned out well enough for the most part.

"She was going to be second," recalls the then 19-year-old, "but I thought if I jumped the last well and got yer man on the rails, he wouldn't be able to hit his horse and I'd be able to hit mine, and that's exactly what happened [the rider on the second, ironically enough, being Richard Evans, who went on to become a racecourse steward].

"I tightened him up and we went past the line a short head in front, and being used to point-to-pointing I didn't think I'd done anything wrong, but Mrs [Jean] Richards said: 'You'll lose this, but don't get upset over it.'

"She was right, I lost the race and I was devastated, so much so that I was ready to go home. I thought the boss would kill me, so my plan was to get a lift in the wagon, get dropped off at Knutsford services and make my way to Manchester airport.

"Before I could get away, though, she told me I was to come home in the car with her. I said it was all right, I'd go back in the wagon the same as I came down, but she was having none of it.

"She saw what was in my head, read my mind and knew I was about to bolt, so she took me back with her, in her blue Ford Capri 3000, and I remember she stopped on the way home at Charnock Richard services to use the telephone box, and told me to stay in the car.

"I didn't know this until years later, but while I was sitting in the car thinking it still wasn't too far back to Manchester, she rang 'The Boss' and said to him: 'If you say a word to this boy when we get back, I'm leaving you.' We got home and of course he started telling me what I'd done wrong and what I could and couldn't do with the stewards in England, but she gave him one look and that was the end of it. And that's why I'm still here today. Simple as that."

Stars on parade: the trainer stands proudly at the top of the gallops with (from left) Cloth Cap, Sky Pirate and Annie McCredit: Edward Whitaker

It's the slenderest of threads from which to suspend a career of such enormity, and it wasn't the only moment of uncertainty O'Neill recalls with a nod of thanks to the big man upstairs.

The teenage rider, like many teenage riders, felt he was pretty smart, although his lack of success was battering away at that self-belief, and there was a point when he was thinking that being a mechanic or a plumber or a joiner might be his real calling. He decided to give the riding another go in Ireland rather than among the greater opportunities but fiercer competition of Britain, until his guardian angel Jean Richards intervened once more, turning up with her formidable husband on the O'Neill family doorstep to ask him back to Greystoke Stables.

Jonjo returned, rode four winners from his first four rides and was junior champion with 38 successes, but still the demons chattered away in his earhole, even when he picked up the plum spare ride on the Charlie Hall-trained two-mile chaser Clear Cut the following Christmas at Wetherby. The fact that Clear Cut was a local hero and a prolific winner at the track struck him as both a curse and a blessing.

"I'd had only one winner up until Christmas and not many rides," he remembers, "and at that time the village would be out in force and you wouldn't see the wings of fences because of the crowds.

"Anyway, I'm 20 lengths clear coming down to the last and they're all roaring and clapping for Clear Cut and he got distracted and walked straight through it. He pulled the reins clean over his head and I was going out the back door when I just managed to grab the breast plate and hang on.

"I fished the reins back with the stick and although they were both on the same side he still won and I was a hero and I rode 50-odd winners before the season was out. It just shows you how your luck can be desperate or go the other way - if I'd come off that day I'd say I'd have been finished. It's a great game but it's always a delicate balance."

From the plush owners' room at JP McManus's Jackdaws Castle the stories trip off the tongue, their cliffhanging drama offset by the secure knowledge that it all ended well and Jonjo went on to ride 900 winners over jumps, including two Gold Cups and two Champion Hurdles among 25 winners at the big meeting. There were horrific injuries along the way, even more tests of his resolve, but with age came assuredness and with that came long-lived success.

'It's more of a pleasure now': Jonjo O'Neill is enjoying training again with sons Jonjo Jnr (left) and AJ both part of the teamCredit: Edward Whitaker

Jonjo Jr, now stable jockey to his father at this most impressive of establishments, has clearly heard many of the stories before but listens intently, perhaps in hope of a new one, more likely because he possesses more than a little of his father's passion for the game and, in particular, the upcoming festival. He's had his share of ups and downs already but, as reigning champion conditional and with more than 50 winners in the bag this season, he seems past the hiccuping stage and intent on making the most of what's becoming a vintage season for a yard that houses the improving stayer Cloth Cap, who seems sure to make a bold bid for Grand National glory this spring.

Out on the gallops for a photo-call, 1,200 feet above sea level, the 22-year-old shrugs off the bitter Cotswolds wind and talks horses - or perhaps something of interest on social media - with year-younger brother AJ, currently a business management student but also, and significantly, not only an amateur rider but also a keen student of anything Jonjo snr cares to teach him.

"Funnily enough, when they were kids, AJ would have been the more natural rider but now he's more into the training side," says the man who started out at his own yard at Penrith and has since won the Gold Cup and Grand National from Jackdaws. "I've never steered them, though. They did the pony racing and then went their own routes. If you try to steer them you're blamed for life if it goes wrong!

"I was the youngest of four and I remember all my father said to us was 'do what you enjoy doing because if you enjoy it you'll put in that bit extra, and if you don't put in that bit extra you'll never be better than run of the mill'.

"I've always taken that philosophy with the lads and you can tell now how much AJ loves being around the horses. When you talk to him you get the passion I used to feel and that's something you can't buy and you can't make - it's a natural instinct."

There's something about the trainer now that's a little different, more relaxed, more fulfilled than the Jonjo of yore, and it isn't hard to understand why. There have always been good times, before and during his 20 years at Jackdaws - as more than 2,300 winners and 26 festival successes as a trainer will attest - but now there's a feeling of certainty that the game's still as important as ever, and it's down to family.

With wife Jacqui an important cog in the wheel of the yard there's a welcome element of consistency, but the emergence of Jonjo and AJ as key components has brought a renewed vigour. There are three other siblings who haven't gone down the racing route, but Jonjo Jr can't get enough of the task of bringing his riding experience to bear on the plans for individual horses.

"Having ridden most of them really helps with the entries and that's something I enjoy because it drives us all forward to the next day," he enthuses. "The whole team, we're all consumed by it, looking for the little things that make the difference. They've all ridden and it's really only the last couple of years that we've had that in place."

The trainer has his nephew Joe - an integral part of the set-up, both in the office and on the racecourse - complementing the efforts of head lads Johnny Kavanagh, Alan Berry and Ed Telfer, but it's his boys who bring the widest beam of personal satisfaction to the job.

"It's more of a pleasure than a chore now the lads are on board," he smiles. "You feel it's getting a bit easier, rather than when you're doing it all yourself, day in and day out, it gets monotonous and when things go wrong you think you should have seen them before they happened, and everything muddles your head up.

"I'm sure it's the same in every family, whatever the business - when your kids start to show an interest it lightens the load and you know there's a bigger picture beyond the time when you finally retire."

The 68-year-old seems a long way off that point at the moment. He's just had his first Covid vaccination and is feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed, even though he claims his Cheltenham team is looking a little sparse.

"Everything good that's happened in the yard is what leads to a year like we're having, with plenty of good young horses still to bring through, but we're talking about the biggest meeting of them all now, and when you watch what's going on in Ireland it takes your breath away. You look at Willie [Mullins] and Gordon [Elliott], Paul [Nicholls] and Nicky [Henderson], and that's it for the Graded races, so I'd say we're thin on the ground at that level, but we've got Annie Mc in the new two-and-a-half-mile mares' chase on the Friday, and I'd say she'd be our best.

"She's won her two Listed races, which is something I wasn't expecting at the start of the season. I thought the handicapper had her, but the mares' programme has helped her progress and I think the soft ground has improved her because she goes on it better than most."

One more festival winner from Jackdaws would crown a healthy campaign, but having built a long and distinguished career on such shaky foundations, Jonjo O'Neill knows it's the long haul that counts, for father and sons.

The Big Read is exclusive to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Members can read more Big Reads here:

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