Since we last spoke, we were just days away from the Punchestown Festival, and what a week it was. Punchestown is very special for many reasons; the crowd, the end of season party feeling and, of course, the Irish hospitality!

We were absolutely delighted to come home with a winner too with Petit Tonnerre victorious on the Thursday to give Richie McLernon his first ever Punchestown winner. We are all absolutely thrilled for him and thank our Punchestown team, made up of Jade, Jay, Liah and Verity for all of their incredible work with all of our runners.

Back at home, you will have seen on our social media that many of the horses are out in the fields and paddocks here at Jackdaws Castle, enjoying their holidays. They will be out for around 8 weeks before coming back in to start their training programmes for the winter ahead.

While they are all out, it gives our team the opportunity to thoroughly clean and sterilise all of the stables to get rid of any nasties before they all come back in.

It’s naturally very quiet on the track, but we have still enjoyed a couple of winners throughout May with Ann d’Arabie opening her account at Huntingdon for owners Anne, Harriet & Lucinda Bond, and bringing up our first winner of the new 2025/26 season. This was followed up with Mammies Boy winning at Warwick after almost a year off the track for a delighted What’s The Craic Syndicate and The Long Walk getting off the mark when winning very nicely at the same course later in the month for Martyn and Elaine Booth.

Always at this time, we are busy at sales looking for the next superstars, and we will be heading to the Goffs Arkle Sale from the 10-12 June in Kildare. This is Ireland’s market-leading store sale and, as always, if you would like to get involved, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us to find out more at joe@oneill.racing.

We wish you all a lovely week in the sunshine!

​Best wishes and take care,

Jonjo and AJ

Congratulations to Jade Aspell for winning employee of the month.

Jade has been our racing secretary for nearly 6 years. Last month Jade oversaw the complicated logistics of getting the 9 horses, their passports and travel information, food and enough staff to accompany them across to Punchestown including Jade driving over and back in a wagon. This was made all the sweeter by us having a very successful week.

We greatly appreciate all her hard work and continued support of O’Neill Racing.