Mike Vince looks a some people and places for whom 2025 promises to be a very big year.
GUY LAVENDER
A warm welcome to the new man at the helm of Cheltenham Racecourse who has little over two months to his First Festival, and just one meeting - Trials Day on January 25th - to get his eye in.
It’s a very different challenge from his previous job at the MCC, and he is well aware Cheltenham 2025 HAS to be the one where the recovery begins and the changes brought in both on and off the track net the Jockey Club a first dividend. A few more British winners would help, although there’s not much he can do about that, but the Cheltenham experience needs to be the best racing has to offer.
And all those in any part of Racing plc will wish the new chief executive luck.
BEN JONES
It was back in 2019 that a young Welsh conditional Ben Jones first hit the headlines when partnering Emma Lavelle’s De Rasher Counter to victory in the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury.
Five years on, Jones is stable jockey to Ben Pauling and claimed a first Grade One success with The Jukebox Man at Kempton over Christmas in the same colours that he wore for his first Cheltenham Festival success.
He learned much from his years with Philip Hobbs in West Somerset and has become a jockey in demand. At Cheltenham on New Years Day his four rides netted three seconds and a third.
Racing is in his blood, his father Dai is Clerk of the Course at Chepstow and Ben is young enough to join the Bowen Brothers as an elite Welsh sportsman, learning all the time and with Pauling looking to have assembled his strongest ever team of horses, 2025 could be a very big year for both.
MICHAEL O’SULLIVAN
Rising star Michael O’Sullivan had an outstanding grounding in point to points before turning professional, and faces a key 2025.
He was retained by trainer Barry Connell for whom he rode Marine Nationale to a stunning victory in the 2023 Sky Bet Supreme at the Festival, just months after being crowned Ireland’s Champion Conditional.
Racing has been in his blood from infancy and having had both injury and the loss of his relationship with Connell to contend with in 2024, he needs to look to the future with confidence.
That could hardly have come better than on New Years Day when he was chosen by Willie Mullins, for whom he rides out, for the winning ride on Embassy Gardens in the big New Years Day Chase at Tramore.
His father Willie won the Foxhunters at Cheltenham on Lovely Citizen in 1991 and Michael only turned professional once he had completed a degree in Agricultural Studies, and it will come as no surprise if further opportunities come his way from Closutton.
One of the most impressive of the up-and-coming jockeys in media interviews, it will be a surprise if racing, not agriculture, the family has a farm near Mallow, doesn't dominate his life for the next decade or more.
THE O’NEILL FAMILY
A racing clan who surely have a big 2025 ahead. They went through ‘a rebrand’ in 2024, with elder son AJ joining his Jonjo on the licence, probably to do the M6 journeys to Haydock and the like on a Saturday. while younger sibling Jonjo Junior continues to suffer starvation rations as the stable jockey.
On the evidence so far, the O’Neill stable at Jackdaws Castle has a strong squad to go to war with for the rest of the season, with the dream of a Cheltenham Festival winner for the family still very much a possibility, rekindling memories of the likes of Alberta’s Run and Synchronised.
They started 2025 with a bang as Springwell Bay won at Cheltenham, just over the hill from their training base, where an exciting team of novice hurdles including Roadlesstravelled, a Grade Two winner at Haydock in November before being lost in the fog at Aintree on Boxing Day, are housed.
They have a lot to look forward to with hopefully Lady Luck, who has been anything but helpful in the past, giving them some support this time.
HEXHAM RACECOURSE
National Hunt aficionado's were delighted this week by the news that ITV will screen racing from this glorious corner of Northumberland for the first time in decades in November.
It’s ironic it should share coverage with Exeter that day, as those two tracks at completely opposite ends of the country are often the centre of an argument, also involving Bath, as to which of them is the highest racecourse in the land.
Hexham’s racing is always competitive and with the stands looking down on the track viewing is exceptional, as is the view on a glorious afternoon from the spot above the town at the top of Yarridge Heights.
In the past its been known for being one of the tracks to race alongside Cheltenham during Festival week and a string of spring and early summer Saturdays where the Heart of All England Cup has been amongst the features.
Hopefully ITV will show a little of what makes Hexham click as well as the races, and the racing world will see competitive sport, happy punters and the top Northern yards more than happy to run their horses there.
In short, if you have not seen Hexham before be prepared for something different - and wonderful.
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