Michael Kenneally and Eoin Staples
Michael Kenneally saw the stride on the run to the second last flight and he gave his mare a squeeze. Cousin Kate saw it too and she responded. She pinged the obstacle, hardly touched it, landed with momentum and in a share of the lead.
You could have gone for home then. Momentum up, adrenaline up. The first day of the Dublin Racing Festival, Leopardstown, the first race, the crowds, the atmosphere, the enormity of it all. You would have forgiven an inexperienced rider if he had kicked on at that point. Michael Kenneally had only turned professional less than five months earlier, he was still claiming 7lb, but he didn’t. And that was probably the winning of the race right there.
He waited until they had left the home turn behind them before he allowed his mare ease her way into the lead. He gave her a squeeze on the run to the final flight. Concentrate now. Cousin Kate landed a little awkwardly at the back of the last, but her rider quickly had her balanced again and going forward. He could sense another horse coming at him, but he knew that his mare was always going to get there, and she did, with three parts of a length to spare.
“That was huge,” says Michael now. “It was a massive day. To ride a winner at the Dublin Racing Festival. You’d have to pinch yourself.”
The horse who was coming at him on the run-in was Dameauscottlestown, with Eoin Staples on board. Her path through the race was very different. She is a mare who likes to be settled back in the field early on, who likes to pass horses, so it wasn’t ideal for her that the race was run at a moderate pace.
No better than 13th or 14th jumping the second last flight, she had to try to make her way through a concertinaed field. There was bumping as she made her ground, racing room at a premium and, by the time she got into the clear, Cousin Kate and Michael Kenneally had flown. Dameauscottlestown and Eoin Staples closed all the way to the line, but the line wasn’t far enough away, and they came up just short.
And now, nearly three months after they fought out the finish to the first race on the first day of the Dublin Racing Festival, just two weeks left in the season, and Michael Kenneally and Eoin Staples are fighting it out again for the 2025/26 conditional jockeys’ championship.
Regardless of how the next two weeks go, both riders have had fantastic seasons. Two months before Michael Kenneally won that Paddy and Maureen Mullins Mares’ Handicap Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival on Cousin Kate, he won the Listed Bective Stud Handicap Hurdle at Navan on Gringo D’Aubrelle for Gordon Elliott.
Eoin Staples won the Galway Tribes Handicap Hurdle at the Galway Festival during the summer on Come On The Lads, victory snatched from an improbable position in one of the most dramatic finishes of the season, and he rode Now Is The Hour to victory in the Thyestes Chase at Gowran Park in another.
“Come On The Lads was unreal,” says Eoin now. “To win a big race at Galway, and to win it like that. A horse jumped across me at the first flight, so I was last early on and I just had to sit and suffer. Even running down the hill with two flights to jump, I couldn’t switch out. He was great though on the run up the hill, he was so strong.”
Thirteenth jumping the final flight, they got up to win by a head.
“And to win a Thyestes was unbelievable,” he says. “I’m from Duncormick in Wexford, Gowran is not far away, I grew up watching the Thyestes Chase. So to win it was unreal. Gavin Cromwell has been so good to me. I was delighted to be able to reward his faith in such a big race.”
Two of the rising stars of the weigh room, Eoin Staples and Michael Kenneally have much in common. Neither with a deep family involvement in racing, both young men made their way into it through a love of horses, riding ponies, riding out with local trainers, Staples in Wexford, Kenneally in Cork.
Both started off this season claiming 7lb. When Eoin Staples rode Cousin Kate to win a mares’ handicap hurdle at Cork in early January, his claim was reduced to 5lb. When Michael Kenneally rode the same Cousin Kate to that victory in the Paddy and Maureen Mullins Mares’ Handicap Hurdle at Leopardstown in early February, his claim was reduced to 5lb. They sit beside each other in the weigh room. They have the same agent, Garry Cribbin.
“They’re two great lads,” says their agent. “Head down, work hard. They both have the talent obviously, and nothing is ever too much trouble for either of them. If you ask them to do anything, go to a trainer, ride a piece of work, they’re both up for it. They've both had fantastic seasons, they deserve to be in this position.”
Their respective paths to this point have been divergent too though. Eoin Staples rode 13 point-to-point winners before turning professional last July. A 22-year-old making his way, he rode his first winner as a professional rider six days after getting his licence, Ahead Of The Posse in a claiming hurdle at Roscommon for Gavin Cromwell, and he kicked on.
“It’s unreal, the season that I have had so far,” he says. “The people who have supported me, I can’t thank them enough. Gavin Cromwell and Paul Nolan, Cian Collins, Colin Bowe. My agent Garry Cribbin. Lots of other people. I obviously wouldn't be here now without the support that I have got.”
Michael Kenneally rode on the flat after he finished on the pony racing circuit. He spent some time with Jim Bolger and he rode as an apprentice for Michael Bell in Britain before spending time in Australia riding work. He left racing for a couple of years after he came home from Australia, he worked as an electrician, before getting back into racing. He spent some time in Nicky Henderson's before coming back to Ireland and riding as an amateur. He turned conditional last September.
“I was late enough in the season turning,” he says. “So I thought that the championship would be well out of reach. But it was always there, in the back of my mind. The support that I have had has been unreal. John Ryan and Declan Queally, Padraig Butler and Sonny Carey. Colin Motherway has been brilliant. I would speak to Colin pretty much every day. Then I had a great run, after Christmas I was three or four behind. Then I got to within two. I’d love to win it. You don’t go into these things wanting to finish second. I’d prefer to finish last than second.”
Eoin Staples had a fall at Downpatrick on 29th March. They thought initially that he had broken his collarbone and, if he had, that would obviously have been it, season over, championship dreams in tatters. But it wasn’t a broken collarbone, and he was back riding a couple of days later.
He rode a double at Wexford last Friday, and he rode another double at Down Royal on Sunday, all four for Paul Nolan. That took him to 31 winners for the season. He had another winner at Bellewstown yesterday, Take Stock for Gavin Cromwell, 32. Michael Kenneally rode a winner at Wexford on that same Friday for Padraig Butler, and he drove the 33/1 Diarmuid Ryan-trained Cooltubrid Eva to victory at Limerick on Thursday. That took him to 27, five behind now. The three winners that he rode as an amateur earlier in the season don’t count in the conditional jockeys’ championship.
Barry Geraghty was conditional jockeys’ champion in 1999. Robbie Power was conditional champion in 2004, Bryan Cooper was champion in 2011, Jack Kennedy was champion in 2015, Rachael Blackmore was champion in 2016. It’s an illustrious role of honour, to which either Eoin Staples or Michael Kenneally look set to be added on 2nd May.
There are eight more racing days in the 2025/26 Irish National Hunt season as things stand: Tramore today, Tramore tomorrow, Kilbeggan on Friday, and then the Punchestown Festival. Michael Kenneally has four rides at Tramore today, Eoin Staples has one. The rest of the season starts now.
© The Sunday Times, 19th April 2026
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