I was tired and didn’t see any point going on
A chance meeting took Mark Enright from a place of despair...
WHEN Mark Enright rolled down his car window for a chat in Proudstown Park on Tuesday, the news of Liam Treadwell’s death had already filtered through to the weighroom. Winner of the 2009 Grand National on Mon Mome, Treadwell had battled with depression before taking his own life. He was 34.
A part of Enright had been in that dark place where you suffer in silence, feel terribly alone in a crowded room, and don’t see much point in carrying on.
It’s five-and-a-half years since Enright was at point zero, only to turn his life around; become a doting father to Sophie, win the Galway Plate, enjoy an armchair seat at Croker thanks to his close friend Shane Dowling as his beloved Limerick hurlers won their first All-Ireland in 45 years.
As he embraces the challenge of Flat racing, following a decade over jumps, the likeable jockey known as ‘Fish’ appreciates life through a more optimistic prism.
Soft rain was falling in Navan as Enright recalled the first week of 2015 and a chance cup of tea with fellow jockey, Mark Walsh, that saved him.
That fateful Sunday, January 4, Enright had made preparations to ‘get out’ as he put it. There was an overdose of tablets by his bed, and letters written to family and friends, explaining what he had done. He was in a bad way.
‘I was very tired for a long time, and couldn’t motivate myself. I’d got to the point (at that time) where I didn’t see much point in carrying on,’ Enright recalls.
‘I didn’t have a clue what was happening and didn’t know what depression was at the time,’ he explains. ‘I proper struggled, I was nearly gone only for the help of friends. At the time I pushed them all away.’
Enright’s fragile mental state wasn’t helped by the passing of Dessie Hughes a couple of months earlier.
Under Hughes’ wing, he’d won on Our Conor, and rode out every day of the week at Osborne Lodge before going freelance.
He felt he would crack on in his career, climb up the rung closer to Ruby... and Davy... and Barry, but it was not to be.
‘I rode a few winners but injuries crept in and when you’re out, you’re forgotten about. It’s tough. The phone stops ringing.’
But not the alarm bells inside your head. Enright spent the early days of 2015 in a numbing fug.
He supped pints with the racing lads in Kilcullen, in Ratoath and in Cashel.
‘Fish’ was everyone’s friend, yet he was drowning.
‘In my head, it was a last hurrah. I was set in what I was doing before I had a drink,’ he says.
After catching the train back to Kildare that Sunday, Enright had a ‘cure’ before walking home to the Ruanbeg Estate, clear in his mind what lay ahead.
What happened next was pure chance, like the winning ride on Clarcam in the 2018 Galway Plate, but it changed everything.
As he walked past Walsh’s house, he spied a car in the drive that shouldn’t have been there.
‘Every day there’s jump racing in Naas, Mark Walsh rides a double or a treble. JP (McManus) seems to run a lot of horses there. He’s always there. For some reason, on this day he’d no ride, his car was in the drive,’ said Enright.
‘Every other day, I’d call in and have a cup of tea with “Mick”, as Roger Loughran calls him for some
‘WHEN YOU’RE OUT, THE PHONE STOPS RINGING – IT’S VERY TOUGH’
reason. I used to go out the door, and say “Toodle-doodle-do, Mick.” This time I went in and broke down over a cup of tea.’
The cry for help didn’t go unheeded. Walsh instantly rang Dr Adrian McGoldrick, the chief medical officer of the IHRB, who has done so much for the mental and physical well being of jockeys.
Robbie McNamara and Bryan Cooper, local jockeys and friends, were quickly on the scene, too.
Instantly, Enright had props to keep him upright in the saddle of life. It was up to him to kick on.
Enright acknowledges his journey has been ‘bumpy’. ‘It was a tough couple of years and I still get fairly down but I’ve ways of dealing with things now,’ he said.
He laughs at his preconceived impression of St Pat’s Hospital as being full of ‘straitjackets and padded rooms’ when it was nothing of the sort, rather a place of sanctuary and support where he spent some time.
On his return to racing, at Gowran’s Thyestes Chase meeting, he was beyond apprehensive.
As soon as he arrived in the weighroom, senior jock David Casey piped up: ’Watch out lads, Fish’s in.’
It was all he needed to hear. Noone thought he was mad.
He got chewed out by Michael Hourigan for falling off The Job Is Right at the last, and felt good about it. He didn’t want anyone going easy on him because he’d been in Pats.
Enright will never forget March 23, 2017, when the arrival of Sophie turned his world upside down.
‘She has changed my life for the better,’ he says.
‘I’d be banging on about this and that. I’d be on to my agent, giving out stink, or in bad form after a day’s racing. Then, as soon as I see Sophie, it’s like something clicks. To see her, puts things completely in perspective.’
As a jockey, it’s all about winners. From 2015 to 2019, Enright averaged 18 a season, enough to keep the bailiffs from the door, if not to book plum rides at Cheltenham.
In the racing game, almost every jockey has their day and Enright’s arrived in the Galway Plate, two years ago, on Clarcam, an unconsidered 33/1 shot for Gordon Elliott. ‘We were put in front the whole way. That was savage,’ he recalls with a smile.
Enright’s card was marked by Keith O’Donoghue — ‘a brilliant horseman’ — who told him to lie up at the front
‘Keith said, “He’s brilliant to jump. If he gets into rhythm he’ll carry you away”. And he did.’
The fall of Drumcliff at the first fence away from the stands on the
‘WHENEVER I SEE SOPHIE, SHE PUTS THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE’
final circuit was the winning of the race for Enright.
‘I was left five or six lengths clear. I just let him lengthen into his fences, sure he was gaining at every fence. Spins like him are few and far between.’
Enright clocked up 21 winners that season but last year was a struggle, with just five, prompting a career change to the Flat.
Why make the call?
‘My weight,’ he responds.
‘I was very light for a jump jockey. Last two or three years, I used to be 9-8, 9-9, I’m now down around the ninestone mark.
‘It’s tough, a big transition, like starting all over again. It’s about trying to get your foot in the door for as many people as possible.’
‘My plan initially was to go to England. With Covid I said I’d stay here and give it a go. I’m busy away riding out every morning. On the road I’m flat out. Last Sunday to Sunday did 1,560 miles between riding out and going racing.’
It’s a big difference.
‘You’re going from riding three-mile handicap hurdles and chases, to riding over five furlongs. Before, you might have had a second to think about it, now you’ve a split second to make a decision.
‘You’ve to ride tighter, they ride very tight on top of another. You don’t have an inch of room, you’ve to be on the ball all the time.’
Up to Tuesday last, he had 15 rides on the Flat since racing resumed on June 8. He has yet to have a winner while his highest finish was fourth on Stormy Pass for Sarah Lynam in Navan.
At 28, the personable Enright has come through a few of life’s storms, and he’s still smiling, especially on those FaceTime calls to Sophie.