Jack Kennedy Champion Jockey 2023 2024© Photo Healy Racing
Last year’s Irish Jump Jockey Championship delivered a gripping conclusion, as the exceptionally skilled yet injury-prone Jack Kennedy held off reigning champion Paul Townend by just two victories. Kennedy was winning his first title.
Paul Townend, number one jockey to Champion trainer Willie Mullins, won the accolade for five consecutive years previously.
The Jump Jockey Championship is decided by the total number of winners a jockey rides in a season. It requires grit, determination and dedication to win the title.
The 2204/2025 season runs from Sunday 6th May 2024 until the last day of the Punchestown Festival, Saturday 3rd May 2025. The Champion Jockey for the season is crowned on the final afternoon at Punchestown.
Jockeys associated with National Hunt powerhouses Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead tend to dominate at the top of the table.
See statistics since 2000 for the leading Jump Jockey Championship here.
Below are the current standings for the 2024/2025 National Hunt season:
With the strength and might of trainer Willie Mullins behind him, Townend, who hails from Midleton, County Cork, features among Ireland’s best jockeys. Townend took the honour for five consecutive seasons from 2018/19 - 2022/23.
Townend tends to have fewer rides and winners over the summer months before creeping up on and reeling in his rivals during the Jumps season proper.
His first title victory came in 2010 when he held off Davy Russell by five wins, recording 80 victories in total.
It was eight years later that Townend bounced back to the top of the table, once he became number one jockey to Willie Mullins.
Those five consecutive titles were won with plenty in hand before Jack Kennedy committed to chasing him down in an epic tussle in the 2023/24 Jumps season.
Jack Kennedy, from Dingle, County Kerry, is stable jockey to trainer Gordon Elliott. He harbours great horsemanship and supreme skill in the saddle which has helped him to secure the fantastic achievement of becoming the youngest jockey to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Minella Indo at the tender age of 21.
Like every professional athlete he has to grapple with injury, but in his case it has blighted him more than others. Five broken legs plus numerous other injuries has seen Kennedy sidelined for long periods but Kennedy considers himself "lucky" to have "just broken bones and nothing more serious as they heal."
His quest for the title finally came to fruition when he took the 2023/24 Jumps jockey prize by just two wins - riding 123 to Townend’s 121 winners.
Gordon Elliott is Kennedy’s biggest supporter and revealed while celebrating his title, that it had been the target for the Kerry lad since he was 16. He quipped that he hopes Kennedy "has 15 years left in him yet."
It was in 2021 that we also saw history made when Rachael Blackmore, from Killenaule, County Tipperary, became the first woman to win the Aintree Grand National aboard Minella Times. In 2022, Blackmore achieved the major feat of becoming the first female to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup and in 2021 the first lady to win the Cheltenham leading jockeys’ title with six winners.
Blackmore rides primarily for trainer Henry de Bromhead and sits among the top riders in the leading Jump Jockey Championship. She has yet to win the title but has finished in the top 5 for the past six years.
Her best effort in the title race was when she finished 2nd in 2021, recording 92 victories - 8 wins adrift of winning jockey Paul Townend. In 2023/2024 she rode 55 winners.
Aside from her historic, record-breaking triumphs, Blackmore is most famous for her enduring and successful partnership with De Bromhead’s sensational mare Honeysuckle, who gave Blackmore her first Grade 1 victory in April 2019 in Fairyhouse. The talented duo went on to win 14 more top-flight contests.
Keith Donoghue is from Dunshaughlin, County Meath and is known for his partnership with dual Aintree Grand National winner Tiger Roll. It was aboard Gordon Elliott’s tough stayer that he won his first Cheltenham Festival race in the Cross Country Chase in 2018.
Grade 1 glory wasn’t far off with Donoghue snatching his first Grade 1 aboard Hardline at Limerick in 2018, also for Elliott.
At 6 feet tall and well documented struggles with his weight, he had a few quieter years but he has struck up a strong working relationship with trainer Gavin Cromwell.
For the past few years Donoghue’s name has appeared towards the top of the Jump Jockey Championship. Last season he finished third with a total of 61 wins, his best ever season and is leading the championship in September 2024 joint top with Rachael Blackmore as we head into autumn.
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