Nine days ago, Alan O’Sullivan rode in the bumper in Thurles, the last race on a workaday midweek card. The collar bone he had broken in a point-to-point was heavily strapped, but it was strong enough to take the strain. The horse he was booked to ride wasn’t fancied; sent off at 16-1, Bravewave got stuck in the mud and trailed in nearly 40 lengths behind the winner. For once, the result didn’t really matter.
On that Thurles card, 12 months earlier, his brother Michael took a fall that ultimately claimed his life. For weeks, or maybe longer, Alan had been thinking about how he would spend that day. Riding felt like the most natural thing to do. It was the passion they shared. In their lives, the racetrack and the weighing room were a common space. It was where they grew and flourished.
“That day was going to be tough, wherever I was,” says Alan. “I talked to Jennifer Pugh [IHRB senior medical officer] – a lovely lady – and she said it might be easier to go there rather than be at home thinking about it. Jennifer would have been talking to me a good bit before Thurles. She’s a friend now more than anything. She thought it would be a good idea. I suppose when you’re riding, you’re kind of focusing on that anyway. It was tough, but it would have been tough at home too.
“Sure, everybody found it tough, not just me. Like, all the jockeys that were there last year as well, you know. And it was such a miserable day. It was lashing out of the heavens. I didn’t even go out and walk the track or anything. Donagh [Meyler], who had been one of Michael’s best friends, actually won that race [the renewal of the race in which Michael had been injured a year earlier]. Funny the way it worked out. I was delighted to see him win it.”
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The world keeps spinning. At the end of his open-hearted eulogy at Michael’s funeral a year ago, their father William tried to peer over the towering wall of grief and look forward. As Michael’s only sibling, Alan occupied William’s thoughts too.
“We will now focus on what Michael would have wanted for us,” William said. “He would want us to mend over time. He would want us to support Alan in his life choices and find joy in his achievements.”
At the time, nobody was sure if Alan would continue to ride. On his father’s side, the O’Sullivans were steeped in racing, and over the previous couple of seasons Alan had emerged as one of the most promising young amateurs in the country.
I was just trying to follow in his footsteps. I wanted to do what he was doing. He was 3½ years older than me, but it never felt that way
But he knew that his mother Bernie worried, ever before Michael’s accident. She would listen to commentaries, but she wasn’t a racegoer. She preferred not to watch. In the days after the funeral, though, Bernie said something that eliminated any doubt in Alan’s mind.
“I know that you expect me to ask you to stop riding,” she said, “but I won’t.”
“Even though she probably didn’t think that it meant a lot to me,” Alan said, “it meant everything.”
For jump jockeys there is an enormous premium on nerve. In any jump jockey’s career is it not guaranteed to last. Nobody takes it for granted. After Michael’s death, Alan needed to cross that bridge.
“Yeah, definitely. I’d say a lot of fellas did [wonder if his nerve would be intact]. But it’s hard to describe to people that don’t ride horses, you know, when you get up on a horse you’re just completely in a zone. There’s nothing else going through your mind. The first fence you go down to, you were going to find out if you were still able to do it or not. It just felt the same as ever.”
Ten days after Michael’s funeral Alan rode a winner for his uncle Eugene O’Sullivan at Kildorrery point-to-point. A day later he rode a double at Bandon, including another for Eugene. The point-to-point communities around the country are small and everybody knows everybody else. That weekend, Alan was swept up in their embrace.
“I was probably still numb to the whole thing,” he says. “I think everyone got a great kick out of the first winner. That gave everyone a bit of a lift.
“You know, I never really thought I’d stop. A lot of Michael’s friends are jockeys so you’re among his friends the whole time. It makes it easier, talking away to them. I don’t know what it would be like if I packed it in. You’re still doing what you love.”
In the months that followed, the winners flowed in greater numbers than ever before. Good winners, eye-catching winners. As his confidence grew, the improvement in his riding was noticed, widely. In racing it is a self-fulfilling cycle: jockeys who ride winners are offered better chances. The odds tilt in their favour. But the tide moves quickly too. Opportunities must be seized.
The Connacht Hotel Handicap at the Galway Festival is the most prestigious race for amateurs in the calendar. Alan had never ridden in it before. At the beginning of the year, his ambition was to have improved enough just to be offered a ride.
His cousin Maxine is Emmet Mullins’s partner, and Alan had spent a “good bit of time” riding out in Mullins’s yard during the summer. Mullins had three horses for the race, and he picked out Filey Bay for Alan. He had never ridden for Filey Bay’s owner JP McManus, and he had never ridden for Mullins either, but they fancied the horse and put their faith in the jockey.
Galway is notoriously tricky and in a 20-runner field there was bound to be traffic and bottlenecks. Alan, though, rode with terrific clarity and guts, clinging to the inside and trusting that gaps would open. As he crossed the line, nearly five lengths clear, Alan stretched out his left hand and raised his eyes to heaven. The saddle that he used was Michael’s.
“He was looking down on me I think,” Alan said, immediately after the race. “I got a dream run and probably went the brave man’s route [down the inner] but I thought it was what Mikey would have done.”
For amateurs, opportunities at the big meetings are very limited, but after Galway Alan rode a winner at the Listowel Festival and at Leopardstown’s big Christmas meeting. In between, he won a race that is staged at Fairyhouse every year between a team of Irish amateur jockeys and a team of British amateurs.
Last year the race was named in honour of Michael but it wasn’t a case of somebody laying out a horse to give Alan the best chance of winning; in that race the horses and jockeys are paired by a lottery. Alan still won.
“When I won in Galway it was just my father and Maxine that were there, but above in Fairyhouse it was the whole family. My grandmother was there, and my mother went. That made it very special. It was a big thing for her [Bernie] to even go racing.”
Around this time last year, they were together in Cork University Hospital (CUH), locked in a 24-hour vigil. After his fall in Thurles Michael was taken by air ambulance to the CUH and, for the following 10 days, he lay in an induced coma.
“When you look back, hope really would get you through most of it. You’re in a bubble really. Loads of family were there every day. We just got each other through it.”
Even though Michael was older than Alan, they were extremely close. They were mad about horses and Kilshannig GAA, and mad about each other. After every race he rode, Alan used to ring Michael to ask what he thought. He idolised him.
“I was just trying to follow in his footsteps. I wanted to do what he was doing. He was 3½ years older than me, but it never felt that way. We were very good friends as well. I used to be his shadow and follow him around. I used to go racing with him all the time, we used to go point-to-pointing together. I was just looking at everything he was doing and trying to emulate it really.
“It went very quick [the last 12 months]. It still feels like yesterday really, do you know what I mean? Still very fresh. It’s not going to get any easier either, I suppose. You’re still kind of waiting for him to come through the door. It’s a massive void. But we have a very good family, you know, and loads of support. We’ve been very lucky that way.”
Alan is in the final year of a Pharmaceutical Biotech degree in MTU. In his Leaving Cert he achieved maximum points. If he chooses a career outside of racing, there will be a world of options. Michael didn’t turn professional until he completed his degree in UCD. Alan says he will consider that possibility when his exams are over.
“I’ll think about it and probably make a decision this summer. If I don’t do it this summer, I’ll probably never do it.”
He will turn 22 this year. There is time yet.
You wonder how he has coped over the last 12 months. If the experience of dealing with Michael’s death has changed him in any way?
“I suppose it has, but you’d probably have to ask someone else. I’m probably an independent person anyway. Has it changed me? It probably has. Has it made me stronger maybe? I don’t know, to be honest.
“You know, people still mention him and I love when they do. Like, I love talking about him. I love the fact that he’s still in people’s memory, and stuff like that. I talk about him the whole time. It makes it easier. It’s probably my way of dealing with it. I would say he’s looking down on me. [In the middle of a race] I might say, ‘I might need a bit of help here Michael’, or something.”
Did his feelings towards racing change? “You know, the game has been so good to us in lots of ways I don’t think I’d be angry at the game. What happened [to Michael] happened before. Touch wood, it’ll never happen again. But there’s no hate there towards the game.”
They have found joy in Alan’s achievements, as William said.
