Kieran Kelly: Jump jockeys live with the knowledge that it is a case of when, rather than if, they get hurt.
Having to deal with that demands mental strength as well as physical toughness. Yet the death of Kieran Kelly last Tuesday night has struck the racing community like a hammer blow.
The head injuries the popular 25-year-old rider suffered from a fall at Kilbeggan races eight days ago resulted in him becoming the first jockey to lose his life on an Irish racecourse since amateur Jim Lombard received fatal injuries at the 1986 Punchestown festival.
As the news emerged from Beaumont Hospital of his death, men and women who normally embrace the dangers of racehorses were reduced to tears. Racing at Gowran Park on Tuesday was abandoned after just four races as Kelly's colleagues struggled to come to terms with their loss.
His friend Ruby Walsh explained the decision to racegoers on the public address system and said simply: "Kieran was a proper man and a proper jockey." Little more needed to be said. The terrible sense of waste at a life and career starting to blossom was obvious to all. Kelly had already tasted the heights of success when partnering Hardy Eustace to victory at the Cheltenham festival in March. Just a month later, he won at Liverpool's Grand National meeting on Leinster.
For a jump jockey it doesn't get any better than that. But how much more success would have resulted from such advertising of his talents we will never know. We do know no-one would have appreciated them more.
Typically Kelly let his actions do the talking. It was not his style to shout from the rooftops. It was the graciousness of his manner off a horse and the iron will he showed on one that made him such a popular figure.
He was born on June 25th, 1978, one of eight children to John and Bridie Kelly from Carbury, Co Kildare. The family had no racing background and young Kelly's interest in horses was fired by a visit to a neighbouring trainer, Mickey Flynn.
On leaving school, he joined the apprentice school and rode his first winner, the Flynn-trained Angel From Heaven at Tipperary, just two days after celebrating his 18th birthday. When Flynn quit training, Kelly joined the Curragh-based Dessie Hughes and it was he who provided the jockey with his first jumps winner, Return Again, at Dundalk in September 1997.
Possessed of hands skilful enough to calm equine nerves and strong enough to galvanise an exhausted horse into one last effort, Kelly's talent was clear and in terms of races won his best season came in 2000-01 with 32.
It was a quick rise but for a couple of years he was subject to the vagaries of fashion and was replaced on a number of talented horses on the big day. One example was Colonel Braxton on which Kelly had won the Champion Novice Hurdle at Fairyhouse in 2001.
However, Hardy Eustace's Cheltenham victory in the Royal & SunAlliance Hurdle proved that his young rider could perform at the highest level when the pressure was most intense. That professionalism was evident to the end. Just 90 minutes before his fatal fall, Kelly rode his last winner, Barrack Buster.
The horse's trainer Martin Brassil afterwards said that Kieran Kelly was as brave as a lion. There is no greater compliment for a jockey and no jockey deserved it more.
Kieran Kelly: born June 25th, 1978; died August 12th, 2003.