Maybe in time there will be some sliver of consolation for Michael O’Sullivan’s family that he packed so much accomplishment into his tragically short life which ended when the 24-year-old Cheltenham Festival winning jockey died on Sunday morning.
Perhaps too there will some solace in how his fatal injuries were sustained doing what he loved and chose to do: so many have no choice whatsoever about what cruelly and indiscriminately befalls them.
But any such perspective counts for nothing in the immediate ordeal of raw grief faced by the young man’s family and many friends throughout racing.
[ Jockey Michael O’Sullivan dies aged 24 after fall at ThurlesOpens in new window ]
The threat of injury, sometimes of catastrophic extent, is a reality of any life spent with racehorses. But in the heat of competition, it is impossible for anyone to have that reality at the forefront of their thoughts.
Jockey Michael O’Sullivan ‘packed more into 24 years’ than many would in two lifetimes, funeral Mass hears
Joseph O’Brien trio arrive in Saudi Arabia ahead of big money targets
Jack Kennedy hoping to get green light to return to action in time for Cheltenham festival
Michael O’Sullivan death: Rarely has racing’s toll seemed more brutal than with loss of accomplished rider
Not dwelling on the danger and instead relishing the incomparable excitement that comes with riding thoroughbreds is a common denominator in jockeys’ rooms around the world. They truly are a different breed.
In particular, the capacity to park the peril to one side is a non-negotiable part of being a jump jockey. With one ride in 20 likely to result in a fall, the statistical inevitability of injury is a stark reality every time they line up. Michael O’Sullivan knew that reality better than most.
Steeped in the sport, and point-to-points in particular, his father William’s own riding career was highlighted by Cheltenham Festival success on Lovely Citizen in 1991. Lovely Citizen was trained by William’s brother Eugene, who repeated that feat in the same race in 2020 when winning with It Comes To Pass ridden by his daughter Maxine.
But growing up he would have also witnessed anguish. In 2011 Jack Tyner died of injuries sustained in a point-to-point. A couple of years later John Thomas McNamara sustained catastrophic injuries at the Cheltenham Festival that ultimately claimed his life in 2016. In 2006, Dary Cullen was killed in a point-to-point fall.
In 2022, 13-year-old Jack De Bromhead was killed pony racing at Rossbeigh beach in Kerry. Kieran Kelly lost his life in a fall at Kilbeggan in 2003. That year too, Sean Cleary was fatally injured in a fall on the flat at Galway.
Growing up on his parents' dairy farm near Mallow, Co Cork, O’Sullivan was no more immune to that pull than any other rider. Like so many others he dreamed of being a jockey and winning on the sport’s biggest stages, although he was too bright not to recognise the peril that comes with it.
Juggling a nascent career as an amateur rider, he completed a four-year Agricultural Science degree in University College Dublin. It meant renting a house with friends in Goatstown, simultaneously living a normal student life alongside developing a very different career path.
That scientific background meant he took an analytical approach to race-riding. Tall and reed-thin, he cut a notably composed figure both on and off the track. Even in Ireland’s ultra-competitive environment, a quiet, understated confidence to his riding quickly stood out.
Dublin businessman Barry Connell was more impressed than most. The owner-trainer took the rare decision to make the conditional rider his retained jockey. Connell’s string was relatively small but exclusive and it contained an elegant young prospect in Marine Nationale.
The first signs for many of a rare riding talent was when O’Sullivan delivered Marine Nationale with a superbly timed late challenge to win the Grade One Royal Bond Hurdle in 2022.
Just a few months later the partnership struck Cheltenham Festival gold in the Supreme Novices Hurdle. Later that momentous day, O’Sullivan also scored on the Gordon Elliott trained outsider Jazzy Matty.
Connell recalled: “The following day he was in the parade ring to ride Good Land in the other Grade One and one of the officials came out with the golden armband and gave it to me and said ‘put that on Michael’. So, he was the leading rider after the first day of Cheltenham which was a remarkable achievement.”
O’Sullivan ended that season as champion conditional jockey with 32 winners. Although his association with Connell ended last year, he continued to be one of the most in-demand riders in the country up to his fateful accident at Thurles 10 days ago.
The last of nearly 100 career winners ridden by O’Sullivan came last month. On New Year’s Day he had ridden a double at Tramore, including the big race winner Embassy Gardens, trained by Willie Mullins.
Pointing out how racing can take the most dreadful toll is nothing new. But rarely has it seemed more arbitrarily brutal than in the loss of such an impressively accomplished young man who would have turned 25 next Friday.
