End of an era, they say.

Derek O’Connor, the greatest and most successful point-to-point rider of all time has left the building. Nobody saw it coming and yet it was absolutely no surprise.

Talk of Derek’s retirement had become a bit of an annual tradition or in-joke at the annual point-to-point awards.

Every year Derek would step forward to receive multiple trophies and be interviewed by MC Richard Pugh.

Richard would cite updated statistics on Derek’s lifetime total of winners and Derek would just smile and thank the owners and handlers who supported him. Then, perhaps a little cheekily, Richard would ask Derek if he we’d see him again in the autumn, a nice way of asking ‘are you retiring?’

It was cheeky in the sense that nobody, especially not Richard, thought Derek should retire but the fact was Derek turned 40 in 2022 and the inevitable announcement couldn’t be far away.

As it turned out, it was Richard who retired first (as awards MC) and for the past two years it’s been Ger Hannon asking the awkward question of Derek on stage.

Of course the 2026 awards saw Derek back as champion for a 12th time – a full 10 years since his most recent championship win. Maybe this has happened in other sports but I can’t think of one.

Unquestionably performing as well as ever, 25 years after he started out. A professional in all but licence.

Sure enough, the Galway man did reappear at point-to-points this autumn, riding winners at Loughrea and Lisronagh at 44 years of age. He went to Dromahane last Sunday but when racing there was called off due to fog Derek caught everyone off-guard by releasing a statement to say he was retiring from race-riding with immediate effect.

Those of us who were sure he would bow out on a J.P. McManus winner were wrong. Guess he was never one for a big hurrah.

The Great Unknown was Derek O'Connor's final point-to-point winner at Lisronagh in October \ Healy Racing

And so, yes, an era has ended. 25 years. 1,418 point-to-point winners. 12 titles. Six Cheltenham winners. And he went out at the top, as the reigning champion.

This week, in an attempt to put Derek O’Connor’s achievements and talents into some sort of perspective, I spoke to two people who played special roles in Derek’s riding career – Robert Tyner and Jamie Codd.

Robert trained more of Derek’s winners than anyone else. And Jamie pushed himself and Derek to extraordinary lengths to become champion during an eight-year golden period for the sport between 2008 and 2015.

“I don’t remember Derek’s first winner for me but it might have been in 2001,” Robert reminisced. “I think he had only ridden a handful of winners at the time. I noticed he had ridden for Tom Costello in his first season and I said that’s good enough for me.

“It just worked up from there. Derek is a great horseman and a great judge of pace. He won a lot of races he shouldn’t have won, just by doing the opposite to what everyone else was doing. I might give him instructions but he was able to change tactics if that was the right thing to do.

“Nowadays we’re all trying to get them ready to win first time out but, back in those days, we liked to give them a gentle introduction and then go the second day.

“Derek gave very good feedback after a race, or even when he would come down here to school horses once a week. Derek used to work around me but eventually I ended up working around him! I would often run horses in the Western region just so he could ride them.

“Usually when one champion retires someone else steps up to take their place but it’s hard to see anyone doing what Derek has done. He and John Thomas [McNamara] were in a league of their own."

Robert Tyner supplied Derek O'Connor with more point-to-point winners than any other handler \ Healy Racing

Jamie Codd has ridden 972 point-to-point winners, comfortably the second-highest total of all time. He is too modest to put himself on a par with Derek or J.T., instead saying he was privileged to ride against those two greats, and against multiple champion Barry O’Neill, across 20 seasons.

I asked Jamie about his relationship with Derek, and if they were always rivals. He laughed at the suggestion.

“The first year Derek was champion point-to-point rider was 2004 and he was also champion amateur on the racecourse that year, which is sometimes forgotten,” Jamie said.

“So you always knew Derek was going to be good but I suppose none of us realised how good he was going to be.”

Derek won his first title with 59 winners, a record at the time and a figure he grew to an astonishing 95 winners by 2008. but he was about to be pushed to far higher levels to keep The Irish Field-sponsored crown.

“Back then I was no threat to Derek and we actually got on very well in those years. By 2007 I was up into second place in the championship and I suppose that’s when the rivalry started, if you could call it that.

“But it was Derek who drove standards. A lot of people in racing work hard but his work ethic is so strong. He will get in the car and drive from the west to the north and then to the south for a winner. That’s never a problem for him.

“And his organisational skills are incredible. Back then it was a lot of hard work to get hold of entries and contact handlers and owners, and go schooling as well. There were no agents to do the work for you – Derek was doing it all by himself. He was a master at organising his week and his rides. I think that was a big thing, along with his work ethic.”

Jamie Codd and Derek O'Connor shared some epic battles across eight seasons \ Healy Racing

Jamie was clearly putting in the hours too – and he was riding brilliantly - because in 2009 he rode over 100 point-to-point winners and yet it wasn’t enough. Derek rode 113, which remains the all-time record.

“That was the year we really went at it,” Jamie recalls. “I've never endured anything like that. That was just relentless and exhausting but I have to say it was also very enjoyable. That was the year our rivalry really kicked off.”

In 2011 Jamie rode 104 winners – still not enough. Derek had 110. I remember Richard Pugh trying to make sense of the numbers at those awards nights. If only we could go back in time and really appreciate what we were seeing.

It wasn’t until 2014 that Jamie ended Derek’s run of 10 consecutive titles.

Even then Derek bounced back to win it again in 2015 before Jamie regained the trophy in 2016.

By that time Barry O’Neill’s star was in the ascendancy and the age of the epic Derek-Jamie battles concluded. What days they were.

I asked Jamie what made Derek so special.

“Over a jump his riding is just at a different level to anyone I’ve ever seen.

“From the day he started to the day he retired, his position over a fence has never altered. He’s just the most incredible horseman over an obstacle. I don’t think we’ll ever see anyone as good as him over a jump.”

"I don’t think we’ll ever see anyone as good as him over a jump.” \ carolinenorris.ie

No envy at all?

“I'm delighted for him and his family because, at the at the end of the day, I have the utmost respect for him. I was privileged to ride in an unbelievable era of amateur riders – John Thomas, Derek and then Barry to come along after. I think they were the best years of all time.”

But hold on, Derek isn’t going anywhere. He trained his first point-to-point winner in 2022 and last year he had nine winners, including a good few for J.P. McManus.

A lot of good jockeys fail to succeed as trainers. I asked Robert Tyner if he thinks Derek has what it takes.

“I’d say he will be a very good trainer. Sure, he was practically training a lot of the horses he rode for some fellas. He’s school a heap of horses at Boulta for smaller handlers and he would tell them what to do.”

Hmm. Derek's only 44. Maybe this is actually the start of a new era.