Jockey Jonjo O’Neill Jr has come a long way since the days when he used to bunk off school so that he could go to the Cheltenham Festival.

In those days it was very much a watching brief for the now 22-year-old, but this year he will be one of the main men at Cheltenham Racecourse when the four-day extravaganza gets under way on Tuesday 10th March.

“I’d have been about 13,” recalls the former Cheltenham College pupil. And, yes, the school did find out that he was at Prestbury Park when he shouldn’t have been, but this is a story with a happy ending!

“After that the school let me go to the Festival as long as I’d done all my work in the morning,” continued Jonjo. “I’d get a taxi at 1.15 and I’d still get there for the first race at 1.30 because all the crowds had gone in.”

These days it’s fair to say he’s very much top of the class and the crowds will be watching him as he looks to build on the remarkable success that he has had over the past year or so, success that includes a winner at last year’s Cheltenham Festival.

It was always likely that Jonjo Jr was going to enjoy a career in racing in some capacity. His dad remains one of the great names in the sport and after a fabulous riding career he is still training winners at the age of 67 from Jackdaws Castle in the heart of the Cotswolds.

Young Jonjo was born in Cumbria where his dad was training at the time, before heading south to Gloucestershire with his family around the turn of the century when they moved to the training base that is still home for them today.

Jonjo Jr was a pupil at Cheltenham College Junior and Senior School and became a boarder from the age of 12.

“I had to,” he told The Local Answer with a laugh. “I would never have got any of my schoolwork done if I hadn’t because I always wanted to be out with the horses.

“So even though I lived only half-an-hour away I became a boarder. I loved it though, it was great fun.”

And while the horses and jumps racing was a big part of his life even back then it wasn’t the be-all and end-all for him because he threw himself into school life and was actually a more than decent rugby player, someone who was good enough to get into the school’s 1st XV as an openside flanker.

But while he loved the rough and tumble of the great game that is rugby, he was never truly converted and when the Cheltenham Festival came around in March there was only one thing on his mind.

“I just remember all the Irish coming over to Cheltenham,” he said. “There’d be swarms of them.

“There were people everywhere, all going to the racing, it was amazing.”

Jonjo’s dad is one of Ireland’s most famous men, of course, but Jonjo Jr considers himself English “except when it comes to the rugby, I’m Irish then!”

The Irish are a big part of what makes the Cheltenham Festival so special and Tuesday 10th March can’t come around quickly enough for all racing enthusiasts.

“That half-hour before the first race on the Tuesday is really special,” said Jonjo.

“You’ve got the Supreme Novices, the Racing Post Arkle Challenge and then the Champion Hurdle.

“That’s all the best and speediest horses from England, Ireland and France.

“They’re all running in the first three races, it’s scintillating.”

And Jonjo, who is leading the way in the race for this season’s conditional jockeys’ title – he rode the 2018 Gold Cup winner Native River to victory at Newbury at the start of February and at the time of writing had just reached 50 winners for the season – knows what it’s like to win at the Cheltenham Festival.

“I was very lucky to win on Early Doors for Joseph O’Brien in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle,” said Jonjo.

“Winning at the Cheltenham Festival is something everyone wants to do and for it to happen to me was absolutely amazing.

“Any win is very hard to get but especially at Cheltenham.”

Jonjo is eligible to ride in that race again this year, of course, and although he has enjoyed the thrill of winning at the greatest race meeting in the world, he remains very level-headed.

“I’m totally focussed,” he said, looking ahead to this year’s meeting. “I don’t get myself too wound up.

“To me they are just normal races. We are riding the same horses that we ride at different courses throughout the season, Cheltenham is just a bigger stage, I don’t change my riding style.”

Jonjo is clearly good at dealing with pressure and with his name it’s something that he’s had to deal with throughout his life.

Not that he sees it like that.

“You can definitely look at it two ways,” he said. “It is a big name and you could say there is pressure with it, but I don’t see it that way.

“I feel lucky to have the same name as my dad and to be doing the same kind of things as him, it works out well.”

Jonjo Jr has got a long way to go to match the achievements of his dad – a serial winner of big races and a two-times champion jockey – but winning the conditional jockeys’ title, which is a top aim this season, would certainly be a big step in the right direction.

“Dad rode 149 winners in one season which was incredible,” said Jonjo Jr. “That was 35 years ago when they had six weeks off in the summer and there was no Sunday racing.

“I’d be surprised if more than one jockey reached 150 winners this season.

“But I am striving to be better than dad, I’d love to ride more winners than him.”

His dad will be supporting him all the way, of course, both as a parent and a trainer.

The one-time Cheltenham College pupil is certainly one of the sport’s up-and-coming stars. He has passed pretty much every racing exam put in front of him and he’s surely got every chance of being one of the head boys at this year’s Cheltenham Festival!