AMONG the many Irish who returned home for Christmas was former Derry City resident Stephen O’Neill who paid his parents, Catherine and Vinny, a surprise visit, leaving sister Christina back in Perth, Western Australia.

Stephen did some leisure riding and show jumping in this country when he was young but it was only after emigrating down under, 14 and a half years ago, that he became involved with thoroughbreds. While he now works for a fibreoptic cable-laying company owned by mining mogul Ron Sayers, Stephen was based at Sayers’s Yarradale Stud for five years.