Fergal O’Brien
Trainer
Limerick-born Fergal O’Brien has been training under a full licence since 2011 and moved to the state-of-the-art Ravenswell Farm in 2019. Located just a few miles away from Cheltenham racecourse, Fergal has transformed the premises into one of the most prolific in the sport, training over 550 winners in the past five seasons and becoming a regular fixture in the top ten of the NH trainers’ championship.
Having left his native Ireland for Britain as a 16-year-old, Fergal initially cut his teeth with the legendary NH trainer Captain Tim Forster in Lambourn. From there, he moved from one multiple Grand National-winning trainer to another, taking up residence at Nigel Twiston-Davies’s stable in Naunton, Gloucestershire, and rising through the ranks to assume the roles of head lad and assistant trainer.
Having trained successfully in point-to-points under his own name, as well as enjoying a few hunter chase wins under rules, Fergal took the plunge and set up on his own at Cilldara Stud ahead of the 2011/12 NH season. He trained 11 winners in that debut campaign, followed by 28 in year two and 47 in year three. Soon training 50 winners or more every season, Fergal quickly outgrew his first couple of yards and made the exciting move to Ravenswell Farm in 2019.
That proved the catalyst for expansion, not only in terms of winners but also in terms of quality. Utilising his new facilities to make lightning-fast starts to each season during the summer months, Fergal trained his first century of winners during the 2020/21 season and went on to record a career-best total of 141 two years later. Having made his Gr.1 breakthrough with Poetic Rhythm in the Challow Novices’ Hurdle in December 2017, the big race winners began to flow more freely from Ravenswell, with Crambo winning the Gr.1 Long Walk Hurdle in both 2023 and 2024, and high-class novice hurdlers and/or bumper performers such as Dysart Enos, Horaces Pearl, Sixmilebridge, Tripoli Flyer and Siog Geal all securing Gr.2 honours.
Fergal has also enjoyed notable success with Deva Racing’s That’ll Do Moss in recent times. Sourced from the British point-to-point field, the six-year-old Black Sam Bellamy mare has won a Uttoxeter bumper and Ayr maiden hurdle in Deva silks, as well as finishing second in both the Gr.2 Jane Seymour Mares' Novices' Hurdle at Sandown (beaten a short head) and the Gr.1 Honeysuckle Mares Novice Hurdle at Fairyhouse. She is another top-class prospect.
Fresh from another successful season in 2024/25, when he topped the £1 million prizemoney barrier for the fourth year in a row, and with the top-class Johnny Burke leading a superb team of jockeys, Fergal looks all set to continue his rise up the ladder.
