Charlie Swan (horse trainer)

Charlie Swan (born January 20, 1968) is a former top National Hunt jockey in Ireland in the 1990s. He will always be associated with the great Istabraq, on whom he won 3 Champion Hurdles. He was twice top jockey at the Cheltenham Festival and was champion National Hunt jockey in Ireland for 10 consecutive years. He is now a trainer, based in Modreeny near Cloughjordan, North Tipperary.
First and only son to Donald Swan, a former British Army Captain, and his wife Teresa. Charlie was named after an ancestor who was the surgeon to the British King 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'. He rode his first winner as a baby-faced fifteen-year-old on his father’s Final Assault in a two-year-old maiden at Naas in March 1983, and after a successful spell as an apprentice he later turned his attention to the National Hunt scene. He won his first Irish jockeys' championship in 1988/9 and retained the title up to and including the 1997/8 season. He was only deposed as champion Irish rider after...