Rapidly rising star with his feet firmly on the ground

Darragh O’Keeffe may not yet be a familiar face to National Hunt fans but the teenager from Mallow is a rapidly rising star in the sport, and potentially on his way to setting records in what is just his second season riding over jumps.

With 37 winners to his name this season, he sits in second place behind Paul Townend in the jockeys’ championship, just two behind the reigning champ. Sure, life will get tougher and nobody believes a conditional jockey can maintain a challenge all the way to the end of the season, in May, but that is incidental to the grounded O’Keeffe, who dares not look too far beyond the end of his time as a claimer.