Devastating loss of a true champion
WE can all be guilty of taking sport far too seriously from time to time.
From grown men sulking when the franchise they follow comes up short, to people who should know better getting involved in sideline scuffles, to abhorrent abuse of referees who are only trying to do a difficult job in tough circumstances, you’d see it all, whether channel flicking or travelling the highways and byways to matches.
However, every now and then something happens that puts sport into perspective.
One of those occurrences was the tragic death of J.T. McNamara last week.
At the Cheltenham Festival in 2013 McNamara fractured two vertebrae in his neck after being unshipped from Galaxy Rock in the Kim Muir Chase.
J.T. fought like a true champion after he was left paralysed from the neck down but eventually succumbed to his dreadful injuries.
It’s a risk that jockeys run every day of their working lives. More often than not luck will be on their side and they’ll limp away battered and bruised, but not needing serious medical attention.
Other days they might suffer a broken bone or punctured lung, something you or me would see as a serious affliction, but for a teak-tough jump jockey it’s just par for the course.
On that fateful day in the Cotswolds in 2013, J.T. McNamara was one of the unlucky ones.
He couldn’t dust himself down and walk away like his weighing room colleagues do most of the time. When McNamara was paralysed after that horrific fall three years ago I shed a tear for him, his wife Caroline, and his three children.
As a father to two young kids I couldn’t help but think, how would they cope if they had to get their head around something of that magnitude?
But then again their daddy safely sits in front of a computer and doesn’t constantly flirt with danger, like McNamara did and so many others do for the sport they love.
Looking at photographs from McNamara’s funeral, seeing familiar racing folk like Tony McCoy, Ruby Walsh, Davy Russell and Nina Carberry with grief firmly etched across their faces was a reminder of the risks jockeys take and the reality of the real cost of the Sport of Kings.
J.T.’s cousin Robbie McNamara, who suffered life-changing injuries following a fall, was also among the mourners - another reminder of the daily dangers of horse racing.
Caroline, and her children Dylan, Harry and Olivia, have lost a loving husband and father, so now more than ever it maddens me to hear someone rant and rave over a fiver that they’ve lost down at the bookies.
Anyone who likes to have the occasional flutter (myself included) is sure to have a moan and groan about jockeys from time to time when another losing docket is crumpled up and pelted in the direction of the bin, but there doesn’t always have to be someone to apportion the blame to.
The grumbling punters will gripe that the man on board gave the horse too much to do, he got his steed boxed in or he should have kicked on sooner.
However, it’s often a case that the nag you selected was simply not good enough or was unlucky on the day. Most of the armchair punters would tremble if they even stood next to a racehorse, never mind sitting up on one, so the bravery of those involved in horse racing is without question.
Many, like J.T. did, do it for the sheer love of all things equine, and despite the obvious dangers wouldn’t want to do anything else.
For jockeys like Nina Carberry and Jamie Codd it’s in their blood and their passion for the game is evident every time they set foot on the racecourse, so we should respect and admire them for literally putting their bodies on the line.
The next time you lose a few quid, maybe blame yourself for picking the wrong horse and not the jockey who has the difficult and precarious job of steering him home.
If that doesn’t work just think of J.T. McNamara. That might make you appreciate what real loss is.