O'Neill to advance from seat of power

A trainer steeped in Cheltenham lore attacks the Festival from a new stronghold

As he limped around his Jackdaws Castle premises yesterday, pale features cold under a baseball cap, the trainer who is fifth in the championship looked a wounded figure. You could have put your arm round him.

However, this, you had to remember was Jonjo O'Neill, the man who has returned thunderbolts to the heavens. The little man does not need anybody's help.

As he approaches his 50th birthday, O'Neill can look back on a life in which fate has proved a consistent and hard-punching opponent. Yet this is a character who views being knocked down merely as an opportunity to get back up again.

O'Neill has survived cancer, a disintegration of his first marriage laid bare in the media and the threat of amputation of a right leg hugely damaged by falls. And it has not worn him.

In this, his first year at the Jackdaws Castle stables owned by his friend J P McManus, O'Neill has sent out 91 winners at a healthy 23 per cent strike-rate. He is creating a new personal record with every success. And next week he is looking forward to adding to a Cheltenham Festival tally of nine victories in the saddle and three as a trainer. Jonjo genuinely believes that life is just beginning.

It is certainly a new phase for the Cork man. Since he arrived from Ireland to ride as conditional jockey to the late Gordon Richards in 1973, Cumbria had been his only home. He rode 885 winners in Britain, including Champion Hurdles on Sea Pigeon and Dawn Run and Gold Cups, again on the mare, and also aboard Alverton. Perhaps most laudably of all he proved that a northern-based rider could win the jockeys' title, collecting his first championship with a then record 149 winners in the 1977-78 season and again two years later. In all there were 901 victories.

There were the significant moments too as a trainer at Ivy House, near Penrith, but O'Neill recognised this was not the station from which to achieve greatness. He felt as though he was fighting with a stick, until last summer, when an Excalibur was thrust into his hand.

McManus purchased Jackdaws Castle for a reputed £4m from Colin Smith and immediately installed as trainer the celebrated jockey who had ridden him winners in the green and gold colours at the Festival.

McManus, who owns 15 of the near 90 horses at the yard, is not a regular visitor. He does not have to be. The most notable piece of architecture at Jackdaws in the last two years may have been the revolving door which whizzed round the figures of first David Nicholson then Alan King and Richard Phillips, but the present incumbent looks set for some time. "JP's been great," O'Neill says. "He doesn't hound us. He's a good landlord.

"The facilities here are fantastic. It's the best place to train in the whole world. We feel good walking out for exercise in the morning so I'm sure the horses do too. I don't feel any pressure because I was longing to get here. It's been an ambition of mine."

Jonjo is so emboldened by his new seat that he believes he can now compete not only at Festivals, but for the trainers' championship itself. "That's the general idea," he says. "It's a daunting task. Martin [Pipe] has been fantastic for the sport. He's a genius in his own right. But I remember when [John] Francome was champion jockey for years they said a northern man would never beat him. Well it happened for me twice, so these things can be done if you want to do it."

Jackdaws Castle is the local name for a small quarry just over the hill from the land that holds the gallops. The windswept peak is the second highest in the Cotswolds.

The yard is 10 years old, which, in racing terms, means it has just been smacked on the bottom. It has never really been finished and the hum of expansion has never been louder than it is today. Just yesterday morning there were tarmac trucks scooting around its acres, laying a huge, winding drive up to the 100 or so boxes.

Soon this establishment will be sending out runners to the meeting which contributed most to the Jonjo O'Neill legend. The statue of the Irishman on Dawn Run which looks across the parade ring is the reminder of the glorious and sentimental day in 1986 when the mare became the only horse to complete the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup double.

"Cheltenham is magic," O'Neill says. "When you drive over that hill and the sun is on you and you see the racecourse it's just magic. You get the butterflies and you just can't wait to get in."

The trainer is used to having his prayers answered and his most fervent wish now is for rain to arrive at the course which is just seven miles over the hills. Soft going at Cheltenham would particularly assist Keen Leader in the Royal & SunAlliance Novices' Hurdle on the Wednesday. "I didn't even think he was a Cheltenham horse until Uttoxeter, but just recently he has pleased me on the gallops," the trainer says. "I like a horse going to Cheltenham that's improving."

There are hopes too in the bumper. "We've a great chance," Jonjo says. "I know Rhinestone Cowboy is all the rage, but the grey horse there, Iris's Gift, he's won three bumpers and no one is talking about him. He might get done for toe around half-way, but he'll come up the hill all right. He'll be doing his best work at the finish."

A brave horse, the trainer thinks, one that does not know when it is beaten. You can understand the appreciation of those particular traits by Jonjo O'Neill.