Derek O'Connor announced his retirement from race-riding on Sunday. He was due to ride at Dromahane but the meeting was called off due to fog. However, he trained a winner at Quakerstown on Sunday.

Since his first points success at Killaloe in 2000, O'Connor has ridden over 1,400 winners and has been The Irish Field Champion Rider 12 times. Amazingly he secured his 12th title last season, some 11 years after his previous title win.

Aged 43, he won a total of 52 point-to-point awards during his career, following four titles in 2026: National, Senior, Western and Southern. These included his seventh senior title, 15th Western title and 11th Southern title.

O’Connor has ridden six Cheltenham Festival winners and rode his first Grade 1 winner aboard the Joseph O’Brien-trained Edwulf in the 2018 Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown and received the inaugural Ride of the Year Award from Horse Racing Ireland for that effort.

Kilcruit gave him another Grade 1 success in the 2021 Champion Bumper at the Punchestown Festival.

He memorably rode two winners at the 2011 Festival, taking the National Hunt Chase on Chicago Grey and the Hunters’ Chase on Zemsky.

He won the National Hunt Chase for a second time when partnering Jonjo O’Neill’s Minella Rocco to success in 2016 and added to his Cheltenham Festival tally when winning the 2019 Kim Muir Handicap Chase on the Ted Walsh-trained Any Second Now.

At this 2024 Festival, he won the National Hunt Chase on the Emmet Mullins-trained Corbetts Cross and the Kim Muir Handicap Chase on Gavin Cromwell's Inothewayurthinkin.

O'Connor and the late John Oaksey are the only two riders to win all three races in their careers.

From Tubber in Co Galway, O'Connor has started training point-to-pointers in recent years and his main client is J.P. McManus. He also recently had his first runner on the racecourse as a trainer.

Speaking on Racing TV, Willie Mullins said: "It's fantastic that Derek has retired on his own terms.

"What a legend of the game, a real horseman, and when he needed to be a jockey, he was a jockey.

"Watching Derek going around a point-to-point field or in a chase, where horses need to be guided around and presented at fences, any young rider should be watching him. Sadly, they won't be able to watch him anymore.

"But he's had a tremendous innings, and I congratulate him on his record number of winners, which takes a bit of doing in Ireland."