CELEBRITY FAN: JIMMY MACCARTHY Singer/Songwriter, 57 Racing

When did you first get up on a horse?

I was with my grandfather. I think I might have been about three or four years of age. He sat me on a horse that was pulling a plough, and in full working tackle, in a market gardener’s place, and I remember the magnificence of the feeling, being so high up off the ground, the scent of the horse and the feel of his mane. It was an amazing feeling.

Can you remember when you got your first pony?

I was four or five. My older brother had a Shetland pony at that stage. I was a very small child so they got me a tiny, miniature Shetland pony. I think it was a seven-hand pony. I rode that pony, Daisy, everywhere; took it to Glengariff on our holidays, and rode all around and dreamed all the dreams a child would on a pony’s back.

Where did you get your start as a jockey? I went to Vincent O’Brien as a trainee trainer at the age of 15. I had a very, very bad accident during the first year I was there. I was in traction for six months. Then when I went back, I spent another six months there. Then I moved on to Newmarket, where I got a job as an apprentice working with Billy O’Gorman. I had a couple of rides there on the flat; nothing significant at all.

By the time I was 19, my dad had become unwell, and I returned home to help. I used to ride out for Fergie Sutherland in the mornings. I used to drive for my dad who had a small transport business in the afternoons, and sometimes at night, and then I started to play gigs at night.

My dad’s business closed down. I was playing late-night gigs and couldn’t get up in the morning to ride gallops. Eventually I found myself, as I am still now, a professional musician.

What did you notice about Vincent O’Brien?

He was a perfectionist. He surrounded himself with the very best of people. There was an element of the Henry Ford about him in that respect. He had very advanced, futuristic ideas about horses, which I think, strangely enough, the O’Brien who’s in his place now – Aidan O’Brien – has that same instinct.

Vincent O’Brien’s father was a trainer before him down in Churchtown in Cork so he obviously came into the business with a huge wealth of knowledge, and with some great staff.

The headman, Maurice O’Callaghan, had the genius of feeding horses beyond belief. It’s a thing that’s underrated these days. He had the knack of bringing a horse to its finest condition.

Do any incidents stick out from that time?

Every year, Lester Piggott would come to ride work on the yearlings and I remember one case. I was riding, I think, a half-brother of Sir Ivor, and he was riding a half-brother of Nijinsky called Minsky, the great hope of the stable because it was the following year when Nijinsky had become something.

On one ride, Piggott was able to come back and say, “This horse is a pig. It will always stop when it hits the front”, and that was the story of the horse’s racing career. I would say Vincent O’Brien had the genius of understanding what it took to make a great horse but he had the back-up of people who were brilliant at such things, like Lester Piggott.

How often do you get up on a horse nowadays?

I don’t have time these days. About 16, 17 years ago I bought a small stud farm in Wicklow and I took to breaking a couple of young horses and selling them and “playing” at being involved in the world of horses. That was a wonderful time.

Why are you so enchanted with that world?

I love horses. It’s something that’s inside of me. I think horses are deep in the psyche of human beings. When you think of what the horse represents and what it did for human beings in the past up to the industrial revolution, and from then on with regard to sport. The greatest sport you can have is on a horse’s back – cross-country, racing, dressage, polo, the list is endless.

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve seen a horse do?

A yearling, she wasn’t long broken, reared over and she couldn’t get up so she kept rolling backwards and forwards over my leg, crushing it into several bits. That was the most unusual thing I’ve seen a horse do!

How is the body now?

I still have a slightly short leg, but you wouldn’t notice it unless I was walking for a couple of miles, and my knee locks . . . when I get up from prayer, but that’s not very often.

Jimmy MacCarthy's album Hey-ho Believe, which is produced by Donal Lunny, is released by Ride On Records.

In conversation with Richard Fitzpatrick