World-class jockeys like Johnny Murtagh and Pat Smullen owe the 13-time Irish champion an incalculable debt, writes BRIAN O'CONNOR
IT MAY have been a non-descript two-mile handicap for a pot worth just five thousand of a now abandoned currency, at a now abandoned track, but anyone at Tralee to witness it will never forget the sight of Kinane at his strongest.
The heavily-backed 11 to 10 favourite was at the tail of the field with a circuit to go and being hard ridden to even stay there. But his jockey never stopped pushing, cajoling and driving, and it was that sheer bloody-mindedness that somehow got through to Treble Bob.
Annadot had led from the start but Kinane’s efforts paid off and Treble Bob got up to win by half a length.
2. Yesterday – Irish 1,000 Guineas, 2003
THE FRENCH superstar Six Perfections came to Ireland looking for compensation after a desperately unlucky run at Newmarket in the English Guineas.
Thierry Thulliez got jocked off in favour of Johnny Murtagh, who attempted an ambitious run up the rail. In front of the 30 to 100 favourite, and on her outside, Yesterday was kept in position by Kinane to allow Six Perfections no room.
When he finally made his move, Kinane left Murtagh no time to make up the lost ground and held on by a short head.
3. Sophisticat – Coronation Stakes, Royal Ascot, 2002
EVEN AS a two-year-old, the regally-bred Sophisticat was so tricky a ride, a defeat at Leopardstown resulted in her jockey going to the High Court to obtain an injunction against a suspension that threatened to stop him riding Galileo in the King George.
Kinane kidded her to Group One glory a year later though, dropping Sophisticat out the back off a fast pace and then twisting and turning his way through to beat Zenda by a neck.
4. Sea The Stars – Epsom Derby, 2009
TIME MAY have proven he was on the best horse in the race, or any other race run for a very long time, but a steady nerve was still required on the day that Sea The Stars proved his greatness to his jockey.
The massed ranks of Ballydoyle played a surprise, and ultimately counter-productive, card by conspiring to set a relatively slow pace. The temptation on the fastest horse in the race must have been to sit out the back.
Instead, Kinane put himself in position “A to attack once the tempo quickened. Sea The Stars might not have needed such help, but it didn’t hurt to get it.
5. Sorcerous – Listowel, 2002
A THREE-RUNNER race against his great rivals, Johnny Murtagh and Pat Smullen. Kinane made the running on Sorcerous with Murtagh, on the 2 to 5 favourite Millstreet, behind him.
Early in the straight, Sorcerous and a hawk-eyed Kinane drifted off the rail enough to tempt Murtagh into an ambitious run up the rail. When he tried it, the door was slammed in his face.
By the time Millstreet was out, the race was over. Proof of the mental battles even three-horse races can provide. Nobody played them better than Kinane.
– Compiled by
BRIAN O’CONNOR
EVEN AS Sea The Stars meandered his way through the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe field towards racing immortality in October, trainer John Oxx still managed to give the impression of someone out for a calm stroll, so his verdict on the man who steered the great horse down the Longchamp straight is hardly likely to be over-burdened with hype. And yet that verdict is delivered with straightforward certainty.
“He is Ireland’s greatest jockey,” Oxx said recently. “Historically, that’s a fact. He has done it all. In Ireland we have the best crop of jockeys riding in Europe. And Mick has been the example to them all.”
Followers of Pat Eddery may quibble with that. The legendary Dublin-born rider did, after all, carve out a remarkable career of his own, with eye-watering statistical success. But Eddery went down a tried and trusted route, to England as a teenager, and even when he rode for Vincent O’Brien, his visits to Ireland were in-and-out jobs while continuing to live in Britain.
What makes Michael Kinane such a singular figure is that he became one of the greatest jockeys in the history of international flat racing while staying based in Ireland. In that regard he has changed the way Irish racing perceives itself and is perceived by others.
It falls to few people to fill such a role. Lester Piggott managed to redefine the parameters of what it meant to be a jockey in Britain in the 1960s with his determination to do things his way and with a complete lack of the old forelock-touching servility.
Kinane has had a similar impact in Ireland. Younger colleagues like Johnny Murtagh and Pat Smullen are now rated among the top riders in the world and have got there while remaining in Ireland. For that, they owe their older colleague an incalculable debt, because it was that determination to do things his way that makes the man known as “Mickey Joe” the most important figure to don a set of silks in this country.
It was a very different Ireland in so many ways when Kinane began his career in the 1970s and 1980s. Then, with some notable exceptions, Irish-based jockeys knew their place. They were fine at home doing the bread-and- butter stuff, but when it really counted on the big stage at the Curragh, and especially overseas, Irish trainers instinctively reached for a Piggott, a Cauthen or an Eddery.
To a younger generation that must smack of a serious lack of national self-confidence that no doubt was intertwined with any number of elements, such as the economic basket-case that Ireland was at the time. Certainly in Flat racing terms, apart from the Ballydoyle powerhouse, it was a comparative backwater.
But a lack of self-confidence has been about as much of a problem for Kinane as has been a lack of willpower. Never, it has to be said, in an overbearing or pushy way. Instead, the man with the most famously bushy eyebrows in racing does understated the way Sinatra did cool.
There’s a self-possession there that is immediately obvious, and while away from the course he can be an articulate and engaging figure, on it there is a resolute focus that means anyone indulging in idle chit-chat usually gets a flash of glowering hardness that can make the diminutive figure seem quite intimidating.
He has pinpointed Carroll House’s Irish Champion Stakes success at the old Phoenix Park in 1989 as a pivotal moment in his career. Frequent trips to Italy on Sundays, in the days before Ireland raced on the Sabbath, had meant the colt’s owner, Antonio Balzarini, was familiar with the intense Irishman and took a chance with the local boy. Carroll House won, and Kinane kept the ride a month later to win the Arc. An international star was born.
The Maktoum family, in particular, tried to lure the jockey with the big-race touch away from Ireland, but all suitors were resisted. Kinane liked the quality of life at home and took his pick of the high-profile international meetings.
Others watched and learned. It’s no coincidence that even over jumps Charlie Swan soon occupied a similar role, and now it is de rigeur for Ruby Walsh and Barry Geraghty to commute.
Of course, increased economic wealth in Ireland was a factor too, but it was Kinane who fundamentally cast aside the preconceptions about Irish jockeys and moulded new ones.
The pay-off for himself has been immense. Kinane has accumulated the wealth and trappings of a hugely successful sporting figure.
However, they don’t appear to have altered the fundamental personality at all. He still keeps himself to himself and regards the increasingly sound-bite-driven media world of a modern sports person with suspicion. Recently, he was asked by a reporter what was the most annoying part of his job. He replied “the press!” There may have been an exclamation mark to dilute the blow, but maybe only half an exclamation mark would have done.
The rigours and demands of keeping his bodyweight to just over 8st for 35 of his 50 years were never something Kinane paraded for public perusal, recognising that such activity is useless since fighting weight is ultimately a battle with oneself.
Kinane, though, is far from a one-dimensional figure. His colleague and successor at Dermot Weld’s yard, Pat Smullen, remains intensely grateful for the help and advice his senior colleague has quietly dispensed over the years.
“People have this idea of him that Mick is not easy to approach, but I couldn’t speak more highly of him,” he said earlier this year. “Mick is still the man. I’ve never seen a rider like him. I’ve ridden all over the world and there’s no one better.”
Even at 50 the truth of that statement was vividly illustrated during that daring trek to Arc glory.
Sea The Stars was retired soon after and now his jockey has too. It’s understandable. How could Kinane even dare to dream of finding a better horse than Sea The Stars?
So, not for the first time, Mickey Joe’s timing has been perfect.
Name: Michael Joseph Kinane.
Born: June 22nd, 1959, in Co Tipperary.
Married: To Catherine. Two daughters, Sinéad and Aisling.
First Winner: Muscari, Leopardstown, March 19th, 1975.
Champion Apprentice: 1978. Champion Jockey: Thirteen times.
First Major Winner: Dara Monarch, 1982 Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James's Palace Stakes.
Irish Classic wins
Derby: 2001 Galileo, 2002 High Chaparral.
2,000 Guineas: 1982 Dara Monarch, 1986 Flash Of Steel, 2002 Rock Of Gibraltar.
1,000 Guineas: 1988 Trusted Partner, 2003 Yesterday, 2005 Saoire.
Oaks: 1989 Alydaress, 1996 Dance Design.
St Leger: 1993 and 1994 Vintage Crop, 2006 Kastoria, 2009 Alandi.
British Classic wins
Derby: 1993 Commander In Chief, 2001 Galileo, 2009 Sea The Stars.
2,000 Guineas: 1990 Tirol, 1997 Entrepreneur, 1998 King Of Kings, 2009 Sea The Stars.
Oaks: 1998 Shahtoush, 2001 Imagine.
St Leger: 2001 Milan.
French Classic wins
1,000 Guineas: 2001 Rose Gypsy.
2,000 Guineas: 2002 Landseer.
American Classic win
Belmont Stakes: 1990 Go And Go.
Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe
1989 Carroll House, 1999 Montjeu, 2009 Sea The Stars.
Breeders' Cup wins
2001 Juvenile on Johannesburg, 2002 and 2003 Turf on High Chaparral.
Melbourne Cup
1993 Vintage Crop.
Other major wins include
Japan Cup 1997 Pilsudski. Irish Champion Stakes (7 times) 1989 Carroll House, 1994 Cezanne, 1997 Pilsudski, 2000 Giant's Causeway, 2003 High Chaparral, 2004 Azamour, 2009 Sea The Stars. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (5 times) 1990 Belmez, 1994 Kings Theatre, 2000 Montjeu, 2001 Galileo, 2005 Azamour. Ascot Gold Cup 1996 Classic Cliche, 2000 Kayf Tara, 2007 Yeats.
Breeder
Bred 2007 Epsom Derby winner Authorized.
1. Treble Bob –Tralee, 1994
