Geraghty Becomes Fourth Most Successful Jumps Jockey in Britain and Ireland

Leading British and Irish jockey Barry Geraghty has now become the fourth most successful national hunt jockey of all time when landing the spoils this weekend on board Birchdale at Cheltenham.

He has now overtaken the retired Richard Dunwoody to land the fourth spot and is now only behind three of the greatest jumps jockeys to grace the earth in Sir Anthony McCoy, Richard Johnson and Ruby Walsh with 1875 wins to his name.

During his career these wins have been shared between Great Britain and Ireland with 635 of them coming in the UK and 1,240 coming back in his home country of Ireland.

His milestone winner came on board Birchdale in the Grade 2 Ballymore Novices Hurdle in what was a fitting way to bring up the record for himself with the horse being trained by his old boss Nicky Henderson and owned by his number one and leading owner J P McManus.

(Credit Racing Post) Geraghty said: "When I was a kid, Richard [Dunwoody] was an idol of mine. Riding around fields on ponies when I was 12 or something I'd try to emulate the winners I'd seen him ride on TV.

"For me, it's a great landmark and we'll keep going."

The rider was then spoken to about how long he think he could sustain being in the saddle for Geraghty added: "How long is a piece of string?"

During Geraghty's career he has landed many milestones and accolades that see him where he is today the most noticeable of the landmarks are Cheltenham Festival winners with Kicking King (2005) and Bobs Worth in the Gold Cup (2013), as well as landing the Champion Hurdle on Punjabi (2009), Jezki (2014) and Buveur D'Air (2017, 2018) twice. 

One of the biggest moments of the jockeys career was when he won the Grand National on Monty's Pass back in 2003. It was always in this year where he went on to land his second time at being Irish Champion Jockey with the first coming between 1999-2000.

The Irishman landed his first winner back in 1997 and has established himself as one of the greatest jockeys to have ever have been involved in the sport.

The leaderboard stands like this:

4,348 Sir Anthony McCoy (1994-2015)
3,588 Richard Johnson (1994- )
2,737 Ruby Walsh (1995- )
1,875 BARRY GERAGHTY (1997- )
1,874 Richard Dunwoody (1983-99)
1,692 Peter Scudamore (1978-96)
1,589 Paul Carberry (1992-2015)
1,392 Davy Russell (1999- )
1,342 Noel Fehily (1998- )
1,311 Mick Fitzgerald (1988-2008)

(Credit Racing Post)