Joseph O'Brien to scale back his riding commitments to scale point-to-pointers

Joseph O'Brien plans to scale back his riding commitments next season as he prepares to potentially saddle his first horse as a registered handler at a point-to-point meeting at Loughrea on Sunday.

The dual Irish champion jockey does not yet have an official training licence for runners under Rules, but the Irish Turf Club confirmed he has become a registered handler, allowing him to have runners in his name in point-to-points.

O'Brien will continue to work in association with his trainer-father, Aidan, at Ballydoyle, but will not be seen in competitive action quite as often next year.

The jockey said in a statement posted on Twitter: "I have been looking after the jumpers and some Flat horses for Dad in Owning Hill for the past number of months and have really enjoyed it.

"I ride work in Ballydoyle every morning and that is something I will continue doing long term.

"I don't intend to race ride as much next year but I will combine riding work in Ballydoyle and looking after the horses in Owning Hill.

"I am also looking forward to having some point-to-point runners in the future. We have a nice team of horses under all codes at Owning Hill, both our own and for outside owners.

"I'm looking forward to the upcoming seasons."

Minella For Me, an unraced five-year-old son of King's Theatre, appeared among the entries for the Pier Head Bar & Restaurant 5yo Geldings Maiden at Loughrea, in County Galway, with Joseph O'Brien down as the handler and John Nallen as the owner.

Nallen, also a permit holder, had a number of good horses trained by O'Brien's father, Aidan, in the early to mid-1990s, including Hotel Minella, Minella Gold and Minella Lad, who were all Graded-race winners.

Nallen has trained a small string of horses from Piltown, in County Kilkenny - a yard owned by the O'Brien family - for the last six years.

He said: "Basically, the operation isn't changing. I'm just going from being a permit holder to being an owner and the horses will run in Joseph's name.

"There's around 10 point-to-pointers to run during the autumn and spring and they're all horses that will hopefully be sold at some stage.

"Minella For Me is down to run this weekend, but we're having summer weather here at the moment and we wouldn't want to run him on real good ground."

William Hill expect Joseph O'Brien to take out a full National Hunt licence in the not too distant future.

He is just 1-10 to train a winner for leading owner JP McManus in 2016, while he is an 8-1 shot to train a Cheltenham Festival winner by the end of the 2017 meeting.