Bernard Dillon was born at Caherina in Tralee. In 1901 he joined his older brother Joe, both of them being apprentice jockeys at the famous Druids Lodge training establishment in Wiltshire England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Victory on Lemberg

Lemberg (horse)

Lemberg was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He won seventeen times in a career that lasted from 1909 until 1911, taking major races at two, three and four years of age. Lemberg won his most important victory as a three-year-old in 1910 when he won the Epsom Derby...

 in the 1910 Epsom Derby

Epsom Derby

The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, internationally as the Epsom Derby, and under its present sponsor as the Investec Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies...

 was his most famous achievement although he also rode winners in the 1,000 Guineas (Flair, 1906 and Electra, 1909), Lincoln (Uninsured, 1904), Cambridgeshire (Hacklers Pride, 1905), Eclipse Stakes (Lally, 1907 and dead heated on Lemberg in 1910), Coronation Cup (Pretty Polly, 1906) and the Grand Prix de Paris (Spearmint, 1906).

Dillon became the third husband of the Music Hall star Marie Lloyd

Marie Lloyd

Matilda Alice Victoria Wood was an English music hall singer, best known as Marie Lloyd. Her ability to add lewdness to the most innocent of lyrics led to frequent clashes with the guardians of morality...

. They met in 1910 and caused a scandal when, travelling together as "Mr. and Mrs. Dillon" in 1913, she was refused entry to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 for "moral turpitude

Moral turpitude

Moral turpitude is a legal concept in the United States that refers to "conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty or good morals." It appears in U.S. immigration law from the nineteenth century...

". Alexander Hurley

Alexander Hurley

Alexander Hurley was best known for being Marie Lloyd's second husband, though he was also a successful and talented performer in his own right....

, Lloyd's true husband at the time, died two months later, and Dillon and Lloyd were married at the British Consulate in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, on 21 February 1914.

During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Dillon served in the transport lines at Belton Park, Grantham

Grantham

Grantham is a market town within the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It bestrides the East Coast Main Line railway , the historic A1 main north-south road, and the River Witham. Grantham is located approximately south of the city of Lincoln, and approximately east of Nottingham...

, the Machine Gun Corps

Machine Gun Corps

The Machine Gun Corps was a corps of the British Army, formed in October 1915 in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns on the Western Front in World War I. The Heavy Branch of the MGC was the first to use tanks in combat, and the branch was subsequently turned into the Tank...

 training depot. He was not a good soldier, and was often in trouble. However, Marie Lloyd would travel to Grantham to upbraid any officer who had punished her husband. These officers would often go missing when she arrived.

After the war, Dillon began drinking heavily and abusing Lloyd, so that she began drinking as her own escape. In 1920, they separated, but Lloyd continued to slide downhill until she collapsed on stage in October 1922, dying three days later.

He was portrayed by actor Tom Payne

Tom Payne (actor)

Thomas "Tom" Payne is an English actor. He is best known for playing Brett Aspinall in television drama series Waterloo Road from January 2007 to March 2008....

 in the 2007 BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 drama Miss Marie Lloyd - Queen of The Music Hall

Miss Marie Lloyd - Queen of The Music Hall

Miss Marie Lloyd – Queen of The Music Hall is a British television drama first shown on BBC Four in 2007. It was produced by Hat Trick Productions....

.

Bernard Dillon, nicknamed as "Ben" in the horseracing community, died in London in May, 1941.