JT McNamara’s passing overshadowed everything else in 2016

The past year, like any other, has had its high points, but whatever highlights anybody in racing might have had in 2016, I will always remember it as the year John Thomas McNamara passed away, writes Ruby Walsh. 

He was a brilliant rider, but the life he led following that fall in Cheltenham was a true measure of the man.

To get out of hospital and home to Limerick was a remarkable achievement by John Thomas, and by his wife, Caroline, and family, but he lost his fight for life and for that reason it will be always be a year I’ll remember with considerable sadness.