John Ingles profiles jump jockey Robbie Dunne, highlighting major points of his career.
Robbie Dunne was on Thursday hit with an 18-month ban - three of which are suspended - after an independent disciplinary panel ruled he had bullied and harassed fellow rider Bryony Frost.
At the age of 36, Robbie Dunne is one of the more senior members of the weighing room but he enjoyed a career-best total of 44 wins in 2020/21, putting him on the fringe of being among the top 20 jump jockeys last season. Dunne, who had been operating as a freelance prior to his suspension, had steadily increasing success since basing himself in Britain with Venetia Williams in the 2010/11 season.
Dunne’s first employment in racing was with Dermot Weld and then Jim Bolger but it took him 176 rides before his first winner aboard Maswaly at Downpatrick in February 2005. Winners remained hard to come by in Ireland in the seasons that followed, though while still based in Ireland he registered his first success across the Irish Sea when The Ginger Man won at Perth in May 2009 for Irish trainer Aidan Howard.
Before long, though, Dunne made the move to Britain and had his first winner for Williams, claiming 5 lb, when Plein Pouvoir won at Chepstow in February 2011. While still a conditional, the same stable provided him with his first two big-race wins when Rigadin de Beauchene won the Classic Chase at Warwick in 2013 and the following season’s Grand National Trial at Haydock.
Staying chasers have given Dunne some of his career highlights, in fact, with his biggest win coming in the 2015 Scottish Grand National on Wayward Prince trained by Hilary Parrott. He also won the 2017 Eider Chase on Mysteree for Michael Scudamore and the same year was successful over the big fences at Aintree when the Ian Williams-trained Gas Line Boy won the Grand Sefton.
Dunne has a fine record over the National fences, completing the Grand National itself in all four of his rides in the race, twice on Gas Line Boy, but most notably on his first attempt in 2016 when finishing third on the 13-year-old 100/1-shot Vics Canvas after all but coming down at Becher’s on the first circuit.