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Horseracing

13th Oct 2018

From Grand National winner to Showjumping champion, Paul Carberry is some horseman

Michael Corry

As they say, he’s some man for one man..

Paul Carberry retired in 2016 after an illustrious career as a National Hunt jockey. In a riding career than spanned 25 years Carberry was a 14-time Cheltenham festival winner.

On top of that he won numerous big races on both sides of the Irish sea and was Champion Irish jump jockey in 2001-02 and 2002-03

carberry

However, his biggest victory came in 1999 when he won the famed Aintree Grand National on board Bobbyjo.

His final Grade One winner came aboard Gordon Elliott’s Don Cossack in the 2015 Punchestown Gold Cup.

Carberry announced his retirement in 2016 after failing to recover form a leg injury sustained in a fall at Listowel a year prior.

carberry

Despite being forced to retire form racing on medical grounds, Carberry struggled to stay out of the saddle, eventually finding a new sport that suited his talents. Showjumping.

Carberry has long been a fan of the sport and dreamt of competing in the Dublin Horse Show in the RDS. Something he achieved in 2017, a little over a year after retiring.

Now, the former Champion jockey’s career change has been vindicated after winning his first Grand Prix last night.

What an absolute legendary horseman. To leave one career behind and prove successful in another is something that not many athletes can claim to have done.

Clearly, we aren’t all cut form the same cloth as Paul Carberry.