Paul Carberry 

Paul Carberry rode almost 1,600 winners including 58 Grade 1s during his career and won both the Irish and English Grand Nationals. He was stable jockey to Noel Meade for many years up to his retirement. He was champion jockey in Ireland in the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons with scores of 110 and 112 wins respectively. However, he also had more than his fair share of bad falls, some of them when out hunting.

Paul Alice Carberry was born on February 9, 1974, the son of Tommy Carberry, a top Irish jump jockey of the 1960s and 70s, He began riding at the age of three on the family farm near Dublin. He honed his skills through hunting, show jumping and point-to-pointing in Ireland. He was still at school when winning his first point-to-point race.

He was apprenticed to Jim Bolger and gained his first win on the Flat aboard Petronelli at Leopardstown on August 6, 1990. He soon turned his attentions to the National Hunt game and rode his first winner over jumps on Devani at Leopardstown on December 26, 1992. He scored his first major victory on Rhythm Section in the 1993 Cheltenham Bumper. That was his first winner in Britain and the first of 14 Cheltenham Festival winners he rode during his career.

Paul plundered two big British prizes in 1996, winning Newbury’s Tote Gold Trophy on Squire Silk and Aintree’s Topham Trophy on Joe White.

In 1998 he won the Irish Grand National on Bobbyjo, trained by his father. But even greater glory awaited the following year when he rode Bobbyjo to victory in the 1999 Grand National at Aintree, emulating his father who had won the race on L’Escargot in 1975. Tommy and Paul Carberry are the only father and son to have ridden winners of the Grand National.

That year of 1999 was a good one for Paul. Apart from his Aintree triumph on Bobbyjo, he also won the Royal & Sun Alliance Chase on Looks Like Trouble, Down Royal’s James Nicholson Champion Chase on Florida Pearl, and the Lexus Chase on Doran’s Pride. In 2000 he won Leopardstown’s Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup on Florida Pearl, while at Cheltenham he landed the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle on Sausilito Bay.

His other Cheltenham Festival victories include the Royal & SunAlliance Novices’ Hurdle on Nicanor (2006), the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle on Go Native (2009), the World (Stayers’) Hurdle on Solwhit (2013), and the National Hunt Handicap Chase twice on Unguided Missile (1998) and Frenchman’s Creek (2002).

Of all the horses with whom he was associated, probably the most successful partnership was with Harchibald. They teamed up to land five Grade 1 races together, with wins in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle (2004, 2007), Kempton’s Christmas Hurdle (2004, 2008) and the John James McManus Memorial Hurdle (2005). However, the pairing is most remembered for their battle with Hardy Eustace in the 2005 Champion Hurdle. Harchibald looked certain to win halfway up the Cheltenham run-in, only to be denied by Hardy Eustace at the finish line.

Another good horse he rode was Beef Or Salmon, on whom he won the Lexus Chase twice (2004, 2005) and the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup (2006). He also won the Lexus Chase on Pandorama in 2010.

Despite all his success in the saddle, Paul had his share of problems away from the racecourse. In 2005, he was arrested and charged over an alleged incident which took place on an Aer Lingus flight from Malaga to Dublin, where he reportedly set fire to a newspaper on the flight. He was sentenced to two months in jail as a result of the incident. In 2009, he was suspended for 30 days after he failed an alcohol breath test at Naas.

In January 2013, Paul returned to the big-race winners' enclosure in Britain, winning the Welsh National on Monbeg Dude at Chepstow after a classic hold-up-and-creep ride. It was actually the 2012 running of that race, the original fixture scheduled for December 27 having been abandoned. At Aintree that year, Paul won the Grade 1 Liverpool Hurdle on Solwhit.

His last three Grade 1 winners in Ireland were the 2014 JNW.com Chase on Road To Riches and, in 2015, the Flogas Novice Chase on Apache Stronghold and the Punchestown Gold Cup on Don Cossack.

He rode his last winner on Jansboy at Listowel on September 13, 2015. His riding career ended at the same course later that week when he broke his left femur in a fall from the Noel Meade-trained chaser Rich Coast on September 19. Ironically, it was at that same Listowel meeting that his father Tommy’s career was ended by a fall in which he broke a leg.

Paul subsequently suffered further complications when he cracked the steel reinforcement in another fall at his home in January 2016. On August 9, 2016, by then aged 42, he announced his retirement. He had ridden a total of 1,589 winners in Britain and Ireland. He has since turned his attention to showjumping and says he now regards it as “an outlet not only for my passion for the horse world, but also my competitive nature”.

His uncle is Arthur Moore, one of Ireland’s leading trainers. His younger siblings, Philip, Nina and Peterjon, were all successful jockeys.

Biggest wins:

1996: Tote Gold Trophy - Squire Silk

1996: Topham Trophy - Joe White

1998: National Hunt Handicap Chase - Unguided Missile

1998: Irish Grand National - Bobbyjo

1999: Grand National - Bobbyjo

1999: Royal & Sun Alliance Chase - Looks Like Trouble

2000: Supreme Novices' Hurdle - Sausalito

2002: National Hunt Handicap Chase -Frenchman's Creek

2012: Welsh Grand National - Monbeg Dude