CONOR O'DWYER RETIRES: THE HUGELY popular double Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle winning jockey Conor O'Dwyer had a fairytale retirement from race-riding at Fairyhouse yesterday when his very last mount, Mister Top Notch, was a winner.

O'Dwyer (41) has already begun training at the Curragh but had been widely expected to wrap up his illustrious riding career at next month's Punchestown festival.

However, Mister Top Notch provided the perfect send-off with a seven-length victory in the Betchronicle Hurdle and O'Dwyer returned to a huge reception in the Fairyhouse winners enclosure.

"Whoever wrote this got it right!" he joked as his fellow-jockeys applauded O'Dwyer back. His former colleague in the jockeys room Charlie Swan shouted: "Well timed, old man!"

O'Dwyer has been a mainstay of the jockeys room for over 20 years but the Wexford native enjoyed a purple patch over the last dozen years beginning with the 1996 Cheltenham Gold Cup success of Imperial Call.

War Of Attrition two years ago was his second Gold Cup victory and in 2004 and 2005, he enjoyed back-to-back wins on board Hardy Eustace in the Champion Hurdle.

The ride on Hardy Eustace became available after the tragic death of Kieran Kelly in 2003 and O'Dwyer said yesterday: "I would have preferred never to have ridden Hardy Eustace rather than get him the way I did."

He nominated his four Cheltenham victories as the highlights of his career but stressed: "I couldn't pick one over the other. I wouldn't split them."

He added: "I will be 42 next month and I've been riding for 26 years. I had said I would retire if I rode a winner at Cheltenham but that plan didn't work out.

"Then Davy (Fitzgerald) said he was going to run his horse here and it seemed the right time, win lose or draw.

"I've been lucky not to have had any serious injuries and I've got owners paying bills for me to train their horses."