Elliott and Kennedy looking to round off memorable season in style at Punchestown
Trainer Gordon Elliott and jockey Jack Kennedy with Teahupoo Photo: Patrick McCann/Racing Post
Gordon Elliott is adamant that he is going into the season-concluding Punchestown Festival without any pressure, even as he leads Willie Mullins in the race to be champion trainer.
Jack Kennedy heads the jockeys’ championship and would love if the pair could complete a famous Cullentra House double but Elliott is sticking to his conviction that his wait for a maiden title will continue.
He will celebrate if Kennedy holds off Darragh O’Keeffe to bag his second championship but whatever unfolds, the 48-year-old has come to realise that success comes in many forms and the 2025-26 season has been a very fruitful one for his yard.
By any measure, it has been a phenomenal season for Elliott, with more than 200 winners trained and in excess of €5.5 million in prize money garnered between Ireland and Britain. He is €150,000 clear at the top of the trainers’ table with little over a week of the season remaining. His 11 Grade 1 winners speak to the high quality of his string too, just two off his PB.
And he is not done yet, with WODHOOH (SBK Irish EBF Mares’ Champion Hurdle) and TEAHUPOO (Ladbrokes Champion Stayers’ Hurdle) among his team for the festival, which runs from Tuesday, April 28th to Saturday, May 2nd and is offering a record €3.6 million in prize money.
That team has been strengthened further with the news that multiple Grade 1-winning pilot, Sam Ewing will be added to the roster of jockeys headed by Kennedy and also including Danny Gilligan and Jordan Gainford.
Ewing aggravated an old leg injury when falling at the Cheltenham Festival five weeks ago but received the green light on Tuesday morning and immediately hot-footed it to Cullentra House to ride his first piece of work.
“I can’t wait to get back at Punchestown,” said the young Antrim pilot.
“I was out for five weeks and it was just a very bad time of the year to be out. I missed two days of Cheltenham, then Fairyhouse and Aintree and all those big meetings. So to be getting back on my first day for the Tuesday of Punchestown is great. I can’t wait.”
Ewing understands that getting the leg-up on any Elliott representative means you have a chance, even if Kennedy is on the likeliest victor.
Kennedy and Elliott are friends, though the latter is the paymaster. Elliott may appear more overtly driven. Kennedy is laconic in delivery, horizontal in general demeanour, but that masks a fierce competitiveness without which the Dingle native would not have returned from six broken legs and finally scaled the mountain peak at Punchestown in 2024.
Elliott has never hidden his obsessive desire to be champion trainer but whereas in his younger days, he might have considered finishing second a failure – and he has been runner-up to Mullins 13 times so far - he is able to smell the roses more now.
“We have four and a half million in prize money won in Ireland and a million in the UK,” says Elliott.
“We’ve over 200 winners between both sides of the Sea. And we have 11 Grade 1 winners trained this season - 13 has been our best ever season, you know? And we have a chance of maybe getting one or two more to get to that at Punchestown next week. So we’ve had a good season.
“As far as being champion trainer, and I’ve said it all along, I didn’t think we’ve got any chance. I think we’re four or five years off being where we want to be to win something like that. But I’m very proud of what we have achieved.” He has huge respect and admiration for Mullins, whose crown he covets. While there is no doubt that his challenge has pushed the champion to levels the Closutton colossus would not have dreamed of attaining a decade ago, striving to catch him has undoubtedly made Elliott better.
“Being champion was all I ever thought of, and I still do, but we probably made a lot of wrong decisions before, running horses a little too often and in the wrong places, whereas now I’m sort of sitting back and breathing. If it happens - when it happens - we’ll enjoy it a lot more.
“I’m leading Willie down to the last weekend of the season. You’re talking about the greatest trainer of all time, being talked about with Vincent O’Brien and Tom Dreaper. And we’re leading going into the last week of the season, so it’s been an unbelievable year. And being second 14 times, as we will be after this one, just makes you want it even more.
“The first couple years he was champion trainer, he was winning a million and a half, or two million. It’s amazing, when you look at it. What we’re doing now, if Willie wasn’t around, we’d have been champion trainer every year since God was a child. So you’ve got to be proud of what we have achieved.”
Kennedy got his title two years ago and it was notable how an emotional Elliott celebrated as if it were his own. While he is closing in on a second title, on 99 winners and five ahead of O’Keeffe, it would mean the world for the No 1 to see the gaffer receive his own trophy at Punchestown.
“Maybe someday we could do it together,” says Kennedy. “Obviously, I would love Gordon to get his, whatever happens with me, but it’s a brilliant operation to be part of. I’m very lucky.”
His highlight of the year just past?
“I suppose it would have to be Wodhooh at Cheltenham. It’s very important to get a winner there and it being a Grade 1 as well, it just meant a lot. Brighterdaysahead at Aintree, I got a great kick out of that and there were a couple of days on Romeo Coolio. There’s plenty of highlights. I’m very fortunate.”
Elliott relished all those too but references the transatlantic triumphs last October that rewarded the planning, preparation and organisation of Team Elliott, and then the readiness of the horses and riders to deliver, as being particularly satisfactory.
“Every winner gives me a buzz,” Elliott clarifies.
“It doesn’t have to be a big festival. It can be a midweek winner. Obviously, the Grade 1s are what you want and I think I have won 114 Grade 1s in my career so far.
“Having the five winners in America (Far Hills) is something I thought people nearly didn’t even notice. Jack rode four of them and was brilliant on Zanahiyr in the American National, and Danny (Gilligan) rode the other. Everything bounced right. It was a great day, with a lot of Irish people. It was bang up there.”
Kennedy, who celebrated his 27th birthday yesterday (Wednesday), began riding out for Elliott before he was 16.
“There can be a few bollockings and sometimes it can get heated, but if you don’t get heated, you shouldn’t be doing what we’re doing,” Elliott declares.
“But I don’t think we have ever had a row in 10 or 11 years. We’ve had a few ups and downs, like any walk of life but I think we get on pretty well.
“We go away on a golf trip to switch off every year with a bunch of friends, 10 or 12 of us. We go away to Spain or Portugal golfing for two or three days. And when we go to Nashville in two weeks’ time (for Iroquois Steeplechase day), we will have fun for one day but then the next two days it’s back to work, as we bring three horses out and we are there to get winners.
“I’m training the horses. I have to do my best for the owner and if for some reason Jack wasn’t pulling his weight, I’d let him know. But thankfully that doesn’t have to happen. We get on well.”
Probably because they share that insatiable appetite for victory. It was never more in evidence from Kennedy’s perspective than when he shared his exultancy at steering Delta Work to defeat Tiger Roll in the dual National winner’s final race, the 2022 Cross-Country Chase. The people’s champion was bidding for a sixth Cheltenham Festival triumph but Delta Work reeled him in after the last.
It was like slaying Bambi but Kennedy did not care, and nor did he play it down.
“I think you kind of lose the run of yourself a bit when you get a winner there,” Kennedy explains, a bit sheepishly perhaps.
“It’s an amazing place to be in the first place, but to win there is something else, and I think something just kind of takes over your body when you have a winner there.”
“That’s the way we are here,” Elliott agrees.
Thankfully, Kennedy’s run of severe injuries has slowed, though given what he does for a living, you take nothing for granted. But he has found the IHRB’s support services very beneficial since starting to avail of them.
“The last couple of years now, there’s a new facility for us in Kildare with the Irish Injured Jockeys, physios and strength and conditioning coaches and everything. That’s been a massive help, especially coming back from injuries.”
He doesn’t miss a beat when asked what his best memory of Punchestown is.
“Teahupoo. I really needed him and he got the job done and obviously I won the championship that year (2024). So that was brilliant.”
“What did you win by in the end?” Elliott asks.
“Two,” comes the response.
Talk about going down to the wire.
Whereas it was Paul Townend on Kennedy’s tail two years ago, this time it is O’Keeffe doing the chasing.
“I started back on the second or third of July in Tipperary. I think actually, I started back the same time the year I did win the championship. Darragh had a good lead but in the autumn, things were really falling right for us. The horses were flying and we were getting plenty of winners and thankfully, I ate into his lead. And thankfully, all season, the horses have been running well and we’ve been getting plenty of winners.” Just one more week to go, and it is one of the best weeks on the calendar. Championship racing at a championship venue.
“Punchestown is a great racecourse,” Elliott enthuses. “The atmosphere is second to none. The variety of different races is something you won’t see anywhere in the world. From the banks race to the hunter chase, the bumper, the Champion Chase, the Gold Cup, the Champion Hurdle... it caters for every owner.
“It’s a festival we’re really looking forward to and we’re hoping to get a few winners at it. I’m probably going into it in a real good place, because I know I have no chance of being champion trainer. If I went into it half-a-million clear it’d be squeaky bum time and I’d probably get nailed on the last day by Willie like he did a couple of years ago (2018)!
“But now I’m going into it enjoying it. We’ve had a great season.”
We’re really looking forward to this. We’ve got TEAHUPOO (going for the three-in-a-row). I’m thinking about putting some headgear on him – whether it’s blinkers or cheekpieces I’m not quite sure. And HONESTY POLICY ran a great race at Cheltenham and at Aintree. He was unlucky not to be second as he got caught up in traffic turning in.
In the main part of the race, Teahupoo probably just goes to sleep a little bit. The race kind of got away on him a bit (at Cheltenham) so the headgear would just help me in that part of the race to travel a bit better.
I wouldn’t say he’s ungenuine. He’s just gone so laidback and the problem with them staying races is if the pace drops half-way through a race and you get out of it, it’s hard to get back into it. He loves going around Punchestown too, which is a help.
She goes for the Mares’ Hurdle. She’s been a superstar. She’s 10 out of 11 now over hurdles. She’s not fancy at home. When you look at her on the gallop, she just does what she has to do, but we’re lucky to have her.
Maybe later than mid-way in her races, she can hit a little bit of a flat spot and you’re kind of thinking, ‘I don’t know how well I’m going here,’ and she just takes off.
She does it nearly every run. That’s maybe why she’s so good, because she’s so laidback.
FIREFOX got a cut in the Grand National so he won’t run. We’ll see how GERRI COLOMBE is this week before we make our mind up. Unfortunately he galloped the whole way round after he fell in the National, which wasn’t ideal.
EL CAIROS will definitely run in the PRL Champion Novice Hurdle. The race didn’t work out at all at Cheltenham for any of the Irish horses – it was a very funny race. It was one of them things that baffle you. If he’d have finished fifth and there were Irish horses in second, third and fourth, I’d have been pulling the hair out of my head wondering how did he run so bad. But he was the first home of the Irish and I don’t know what happened that day. The English jumped off and were gone. We were four or five lengths behind them and we didn’t get any nearer.
It’s hard to put your finger on it but I still maintain he’s better than that anyway.
The ground will suit him too. We’ll run one of the other two. The race was over at the start for SKYLIGHT HUSTLE, got kicked at the start and ran very, very free. It was over after two hurdles. He ran clean away. Whether he’ll go for this or the Alanna Homes Champion Novice Hurdle over two and a half on Friday, we’ll see. KOKTAIL BRUT bled at Christmas but has run some very good races since and won at Fairyhouse. Like Skylight Hustle, he has the two-and-a-half-mile option as well.
We’ll have three or four in the Channor Real Estate Group Novice Hurdle over three miles. KAZANSKY, GENERAL RISK and SPINNINGAYARN could be the three though we can’t be definite at this stage. SPINNINGAYARN ran a very good race in the Albert Bartlett to be fifth, especially with the ground the way it was there. If it’s well watered and they always do a good job with the ground at Punchestown, he could be a good spin. And he’s won at Punchestown this year.
We could run WESTERN FOLD in the Dooley Insurance Champion Novice Chase but I don’t know if he stays three miles. I think two and a half might really be his trip. KALA CONTI, I think she wasn’t going to be far away at Aintree when she came down at the third-last. Whether we go for this or the Barberstown Castle Novice Chase over two miles, I don’t know. I think she’d stay three miles, we could take our time and hunt away but that will be something I’ll discuss with Jack during the week, and with the owners.
She’d been kind of behind the bridle the whole way at Aintree and was just after getting going (when falling). We wouldn’t have been far away.
We’ll run two or three in it. I think CHARISMATIC KID has done enough this year but I’d say we will run LOW KICK, SOUL ASYLUM and WITH NOLIMIT. WITH NOLIMIT finished ninth at Cheltenham but he was only beaten four lengths, you know? He wasn’t beaten far.
