JONJO O'NEILL JR: LOOKING FORWARD TO AN EXCITING SEASON AHEAD

"The season has already been full of ups and downs already with some nice winners and a couple of injuries. My jaw is now fully recovered after breaking it in a fall in August. I'm really looking forward to an exciting season ahead.

​It was pleasing last Thursday winning on Pop Rockstar. He looks like he's  going the right way and hopefully he can turn into a long distance chaser. Perhaps the Welsh National trial at Chepstow at the beginning of December could be somewhere we go next with him. He's on an upward curve. 

Friday saw our first juvenile winner of the year with Pop The Cork winning at Uttoxeter. He ran well at Perth the first time and has come on well from that. I would say that they will look for another juvenile race for him in November.

Although there were no winners, it was good to get back to Ffos Las on Saturday for their first meeting of the year.

We headed to Kempton on Sunday where Prefontaine won the Juvenile Hurdle. He was a very good horse on the flat and I think the blinkers definitely sharpened him up and there's more to come from him. It was great to get a winner for Paul Smith - his first jumps winner.

It's exciting that Cheltenham is just around the corner. There seems to be a lot of nice young horses entered. Colin Tizzard has some really nice novices', and one or two bumper horses that I rode last year entered up. L'Air Du Vent has a couple of entries at Cheltenham. He is a very exciting prospect and, although I won't be riding, I look forward to seeing him running. 

Also, my younger brother AJ hopefully has his first ride at Cheltenham on Friday on Mustmeetalady so I will be looking forward to seeing him have his first ride over fences. It's great to see him coming back into racing and Cheltenham is a brilliant place to start and I hope it all goes well. I won on Mustmeetalday in the summer at Perth and he should have a good chance and give him a good spin around.

It's nice to see Minella Rocco back on Saturday at Cheltenham. He had a difficult season last year. I've ridden and schooled him in the last couple of weeks. He's been in great form and he likes it around Cheltenham so it's an ideal place for him to start.

Hopefully Carys' Commodity will run in the bumper. He would have probably won with me at Worcester last time when he unseated me halfway up the run in. I'm hoping he can make amends for that, although this is a far better race and possibly the most competitive bumper of the year so far so we will have to wait and see. He's an exciting prospect."

JONJO O'NEILL JR WITH PREFONTAINE OWNER PAUL SMITH AND JONJO O'NEILL SENIOR AT KEMPTON