As the world prepared to tune into Saturday’s Grand National, Robbie McNamara trusted his battered body to surgeons at Dublin’s Mater Hospital. The existential distance between Aintree’s playful colour and such stark desperation just 140 miles away could hardly have been greater. But all of it is part of the jockey’s lot: the everyday risk of serious injury freely swapped for a shot at success, a swap that makes them the most unique figures in all of sport.
If you ever need convincing of that statement, all you need do is go racing and stand by a fence. What will strike you immediately is how elemental it is, something which cannot be captured by television. You may see more on screen but you don’t feel a fraction of the strength, speed and size of these unpredictable half-tonne animals. Most of all, you don’t appreciate the vulnerability of the people on their backs.
On television you can hear much of what happens in a race but not the propulsive impact of a heavy animal hitting the ground. It also can’t capture the arbitrariness which is the automatic consequence for its jockey. The National is an annual reminder to a 600 million worldwide audience of those dangers to both animal and human. It is racing’s centre stage occasion of the year but there is an inevitable detachment to watching it second-hand.
Lord Windermere was to have been McNamara's National shot, just his second chance to ride in the world's most famous steeplechase. The day before, however, he rode a moderate horse called Bursledon in an ordinary hurdle race at Wexford, a nondescript contest open to dismissal as mere fodder for hardened daily betting shop viewers. Even for those involved at Wexford it was resolutely bread and butter stuff. Anyone standing by the fourth last obstacle, however, witnessed first-hand something truly horrible.
Bursledon’s fall flung McNamara into the ground. Two horses following afterwards were brought down. The camera followed the race. Those attending the stricken jockey though could have been forgiven for fearing the worst. “Chest, abdominal and spinal injuries,” was an initial summation as McNamara was first taken to Wexford hospital before being transferred to the Mater. Those in possession of the full-picture reckoned he was lucky to be alive.
That similar words had to be employed in relation to his first-cousin, John Thomas McNamara, after a fall at Cheltenham two years ago is a coincidence too awful for most of us to contemplate, never mind try to bear. JT has been left paralysed from the neck down, a grim reality that he and his family have faced with remarkable resilience and grace.
Resolute toughness
What his cousin will face in the future is as yet unclear. But fundamental to whatever he does will be a resolute toughness common to all jump jockeys.
Of course, physical toughness is almost taken as read for such a role. Tales of riders wincing their way to success despite broken bones and concussion are legendary. But what truly separates them is the mental toughness required to do their job. Because unlike any other dangerous sport, where participants can convince themselves they will escape injury if they perform well enough, jockeys know it is a question of ‘when’ not ‘if’ they get seriously hurt.
It is the psychological capacity to acknowledge that one in seven rides on average will result in a fall and that almost seventeen per cent of those falls will result in injury that makes jump jockeys exceptional.
There is also talent required to bend the will of a creature umpteen times stronger, bigger and more wilful than you, while teasing out the tactical implications of each race. Not to mention doing all that while broiling your body to mere subsistence levels. But it is the mental resilience underlying everything that is most notable of all.
Personified Tony McCoy has personified that throughout a career that will wind up in a dozen days’ time. He once summed up his attitude to injury by saying: “I think every time I’m on a horse, no matter how hard I fall, I’m going to get up. You have to take risks in this sport. And there’s no excitement if you don’t.” McCoy is much too bright an individual to believe deep down he is indeed “unbreakable”. There’s a conceit to that which doesn’t sit with the reality. But the fact he is able to sufficiently convince himself of it day to day is what has characterised the most successful racing career of all.
There was a time when that conviction resulted in jockeys being labelled as crazy, cavalier thrill-seekers. But that’s too pat a description for such a unique group of sports people. Coming up with an alternative is tough. It can seem trite to talk about a special spirit among jockeys but it’s hard not to resort to such vague terms when the dangers of something so wildly unpredictable are continually embraced so enthusiastically.
Robbie McNamara has witnessed the consequences of those dangers uncomfortably close to home with his cousin, JT. Kieran Kelly was killed at Kilbeggan racecourse in 2003. Twenty-year-old Jack Tyner died as a result of injuries sustained in a point to point fall in 2011. Aware of the risks, McNamara nevertheless embraced the challenge without hesitation. Call it what you like, but such people are simply different.
McNamara has always stood out for his 6ft 3in height. But it is that spirit to recognise and embrace the dangers of something he loves doing which has allowed him fit in so comfortably with his colleagues. It is a spirit he can always call on whatever the circumstances.
