THE DOUBLE Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle-winning jockey Conor O'Dwyer has confirmed that the upcoming Cheltenham Festival will be his last as a rider.

O'Dwyer began a training career alongside his riding commitments last year and with the numbers in his Co Kildare yard starting to increase, he has decided that a remarkable festival innings as a jockey is winding up.

"It will be the last, purely because the training side of things is so demanding right now. In fairness to the owners of the horses here, it is something that demands so much time and you have to give it a hundred per cent," he said yesterday.

O'Dwyer dismissed any suggestion of a total retirement from the saddle just yet and instead pointed to a couple of good rides at the festival that could increase his tally of winners at Cheltenham.

Up to now, he has visited the winner's enclosure at Prestbury Park four times but those are made up of two Gold Cup winners in Imperial Call (1996) and War Of Attrition (2006) as well as Hardy Eustace's pair of Champion Hurdle victories in 2004 and 2005.

"It's a little quiet this year but I will be on Oliver McKiernan's horse Whatuthink in the novice race (Ballymore Properties Novices' Hurdle) and whatever Hardy Eustace runs in, either the Champion Hurdle or the Stayers," O'Dwyer said.

The popular jockey, who will be 42 later this year, has already tasted success in his short training career to date and that role is expanding all the time. "We are flat out in the yard right now. There are 30 horses in at the moment and we're building 10 more boxes. Things are taking off and to be fair to the owners, you have to give it everything," he said.

The Champion Hurdle outsider Bobs Pride has been given a "stake your claim" task at Dundalk tomorrow where Dermot Weld's former Group Three flat winner will take on Harchibald and a number of other star Cheltenham possibles in a mile-and-a-half all-weather conditions race.

"We will see how he gets on in Dundalk before deciding where to go next. But if we are to look at the Champion Hurdle then he has got to stake his claim with a very good run," Weld said.

Another possible Weld runner at Cheltenham is Majestic Concorde who is as low as 16 to 1 with Ladbrokes for the Ballymore Properties Novices' Hurdle on the Wednesday.

Up to 40 horses are expected to work after racing at Leopardstown on Sunday in the traditional eve-of-Cheltenham gallop sessions that always attract a lot of public attention. The work outs are expected to include a number of leading fancies for the festival and the current Champion Hurdler Sublimity could possibly take another step towards the retention of his crown.

Leopardstown's manager Tom Burke reported: "The ground here at the moment is good to yielding and unless the weather does something dramatic for the rest of the week I would imagine it would remain something like that for Sunday. We have very few definites as yet but everyone knows they are welcome and they usually only make contact around Friday."

Before that, one of the stars on show on the Leopardstown card could be the Punchestown National Trial winner Chelsea Harbour who remains on course for a crack at the Aintree highlight in April. Tom Mullins's horse is an entry in the Mick Holly Chase and the trainer said yesterday: "I'm tempted to go to Leopardstown but only if he doesn't get topweight. If either Forget The Past or Slim Pickings run, then I would imagine that race would be his last before Aintree." Chelsea Harbour is as low as 20 to 1 with some firms for the Aintree National.

Mullins also hopes to run his top bumper horse Time Electric at Navan on Saturday after the decision not to run the horse at Cheltenham. Instead he will wait for the Punchestown Champion Bumper in April.

"Punchestown is eight weeks away and a lot can happen in that time so while he is good and healthy we will kick on," he said.