"He was supreme and nobody made it look easier"

Ted Walsh has described Derek O'Connor as 'the Tiger Woods of amateur riders' following the 43-year-old's retirement from the saddle.

O'Connor established himself as one of the finest amateur riders the sport has witnessed, claiming the point-to-point championship in Ireland on 12 occasions, including his most recent triumph in May this year.

Alongside more than 1,400 victories between the flags, he rode six Cheltenham Festival winners between 2011 and 2024 and secured numerous other major races, including an Irish Gold Cup aboard Joseph O'Brien's Edwulf in 2018.

Walsh, 76, told Monday's Nick Luck Daily Podcast: “It's like a lot of top people in any sport, he made it look simple, and it’s anything but simple. You’d watch Derek O’Connor and say to yourself ‘I could do that, he’s not doing anything, he’s sitting quiet and the horse is jumping brilliantly for him'.

“He was supreme and nobody made it look easier than Derek O’Connor. He was just poetry in motion, he had a good racing brain as well and you were delighted when he said he’d ride one for you, because you knew you were going to get exactly what you wanted. It was a gift, just like some people who can make tennis look easy, or make golf look easy. He was the Tiger Woods of amateur riders."

The father of former riders Ruby and Katie Walsh added: “He’d tell you in two minutes. Most people didn’t get him unless you had what you thought yourself this was a pretty good horse and then you’d use Derek. He was very sympathetic too. Most people learn things and get good at it with practice, but from a very early age, when he started first of all, he was different. He rode in a good era with the late John Thomas McNamara, Enda Bolger and people like that who were all great amateur riders themselves.

“But then along game Derek and Jamie Codd who is a fine amateur himself, but Derek was just a bit special and made it look easy. Like Dettori always looked like he was part of the horse, Derek did too. They were never out of sync. Even when he rode moderate horses they looked OK, he never exposed their weaknesses. He’d let them pop away, jump away and always arrived at the right time.”