Image © Healy Racing
Derek O’Connor may have brought the curtain down on his remarkable 26-year career in the saddle, but the sport’s winning-most rider already has a post-race-riding career well established, having combined the latter years of his riding career with training, jockey coaching and work as a sales agent.
Derek O’Connor may have brought the curtain down on his remarkable 26-year career in the saddle, but the sport’s winning-most rider already has a post-race-riding career well established, having combined the latter years of his riding career with training, jockey coaching and work as a sales agent.
Since saddling his first point-to-point runner as a handler, which unsurprisingly was a winner, when Southoftheborder triumphed at Necarne in November 2022, O’Connor has quickly expanded his training business to become a leading player in the four-year-old maiden division.
In just four years, he has sent out 33 winners, with 26 of these coming in that ultra-competitive age group, with his team of four-year-olds last spring having grown to a total of 46 that received hunter certificates, showing the leading player he has become in that relatively new role.
Leading owner JP McManus has proven to be a leading supporter of his, electing to send O’Connor many of his homebred and store sale purchases for their early education within the point-to-point system.
This year’s Leinster National runner-up, Goraibhmaithagat, and Pure Steel, who contested Grade 1 races in the spring, are among the McManus-owned horses that O’Connor had saddled to win four-year-old maiden races before they progressed to their track trainers.
More recently, O’Connor has also saddled a four-year-old maiden winner for King George-winning owner Ronnie Bartlett, silks he had previously sported when winning the Cheltenham Foxhunters aboard Zemsky all the way back in 2011.
Gold Steel made a winning debut for O’Connor at Belclare in March, his first runner for the Scottish businessman.
Earlier this year, Now Is The Hour, who was O’Connor’s second winner as a handler, when landing an older geldings’ maiden at Cragmore in January 2023, won the valuable Goffs Thyestes Chase at Gowran for Gavin Cromwell.
Prior to kickstarting his training career, O’Connor has long had an association with Goffs, and before that, Doncaster Bloodstock Sales, having joined their team of Irish agents in 2015.
Speaking to The Irish Field in 2023, he described the enjoyment he gets from that role, heavily involved in sourcing horses for their marquee point-to-point sales throughout the season.
“It’s a role I absolutely love,” he said. “I’m going around to yards to see horses and people I’m already very familiar with so it’s very comfortable for me. I’d do it even if it wasn’t my job.
“You are trying to sell the sale to people, but we’re very fortunate the market is strong at the moment. The sales are exceptional and long-standing, so it’s an easy sell.”
Coaching
As a Grade 1-winning jockey, with six Cheltenham Festival triumphs to his name, O’Connor has also been passing his experience on to younger riders, both as a jockey coach with Equuip, whilst also active within the RACE Academy programme.
O’Connor is one of four ex-jockeys who provide mentoring and specialised skills coaching to enhance the career development of jockeys, as he covers the western region.
With the RACE Academy, O’Connor delivers their one-day Schooling Progression Course for A3 licensed qualified riders and conditional jockeys.
“The course I’m involved with in RACE is about educating jockeys and it is very important to me and I really, really enjoy doing that,” O’Connor wrote in an IrishRacing.com blog.
“A lot of good riders attend the course, and I’ve seen a lot of them go on to win and be competitive in point-to-points afterwards and while the course itself is only a small part of their careers, if I could help one rider on each of the courses I do to ride one winner, it is certainly worth it.”
