Born in Midleton, County Cork on September 15, 1990, Paul Townend has been attached to the yard of Willie Mullins in Closutton, Muine Bheag, County Carlow since he was 15 years old. He rode his first winner, of any description, The Chip Chopman, trained by Seamus O’Donnell, in an apprentice handicap on the Flat at Limerick on 22 June, 2007. Fast forward to 2010/11 – the season in which he rode his Cheltenham Festival winner, What A Charm, trained by Arthur Moore, in the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle – and Townend was crowned champion jump jockey in Ireland for the first time.
Following the retirement of Ruby Walsh on May 1, 2019, Townend became stable jockey and currently has seven Irish jump jockeys’ titles to his name, having won again in 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2024/2025. At the Cheltenham Festival, where he has won the leading jockey award six times since 2020, he already has the distinction of being the third most-successful jockey in history, his tally of 42 winners having been bettered only by Ruby Walsh, with 59 winners, and Barry Geraghty, with 43.
Indeed, Townend is also the most successful jockey in the history of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, having recorded his fifth win in the ‘Blue Riband’ event on Gaelic Warrior in 2026, after Al Boum Photo (2019 and 2020) and Galopin Des Champs (2023 and 2024). Of the other ‘feature’ races at the Cheltenham Festival, he has won the Queen Mother Champion Chase three times, the Champion Hurdle and the Ryanair Chase twice apiece and the Stayers’ Hurdle once.
Away from the Festival, Townend is probably best known for his association with I Am Maximus, owned by J.P. McManus, on whom he won the Grand National in both 2024 and 2026 and finished a close second behind stable companion Nick Rockett in 2025. After his second victory, he said of I A Maximus, “He’d gallop to the end of the world for you and I’m privileged to have anything to do with him. What a clever horse.”