Amid increased awareness of safety requirements, jockeys know it is impossible to remove all risk from horseracing, a fact tragically underlined by the recent death of a much loved 24-year-old
Death of a jockey: ‘Michael O’Sullivan was full of ambition, full of passion ... he was just a beautiful person’
William recalled two days at Cheltenham, when the outcomes were poles apart and William and Bernie’s son felt the spotlight on his face, bright and hot. In 2018 Michael rode a horse for his uncle Eugene in a handicap chase for amateurs, his first ride at the most revered place in jumps racing. Oighear Dubh was an unfancied 16/1 shot but Michael rode the horse with such cold, precocious confidence that they jumped to the front at the last.
She thought that maybe “10 or 15” people would turn up. The response reflected how many people were struggling. For three hours, they stayed in each other’s company. “This was a safe space to talk about what had happened. When I talk to jockeys now who were around when Kieran Kelly died they carried a lot, and a lot of that was carried internally, because there was no safe space to talk about it, no safe space to say, you know, ‘this is really dangerous.’”
“In the end they called the two races off, but they weren’t happy about doing it. They were worried about what they’d tell the public. I told them to show me where the microphone was, and I’d make the announcement myself. So, I did.” When lightning struck again, all racing in Ireland was cancelled and it didn’t resume until Thursday, the day after Michael’s funeral. Counsellors have been made available around the clock, says Dr Pugh. Everybody understands that that the healing process has no timescale.
The hearse carrying the coffin of Michael O'Sullivan is led by a horse on a procession away from the grounds following the funeral at St John the Baptist Church, Glantane, Co Cork. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire Jockeys are more involved now. Their input is sought and respected. For generations, they were at the bottom of a steeply hierarchical pyramid. Everybody they addressed at the racecourse had a name starting with Mr. They raise issues if they’re not happy now and their concerns are acted upon. Coonan calls it a “quiet revolution. The riders now are regarded as stakeholders.”
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