The muscleman: an invaluable asset for manipulating bad backs and other disorders
Focus of all the attention was Kyle Ranger, who had just won his Derby semi-final course in fine style but who had then taken a terrible fall, spectacular and brutal. He had been carried from the field in a buggy, Elaine and Sinead – his catchers, adult daughters of Michael and Marie – in tears, and now he was being examined, inch by inch.
A miracle would be required to get him to run in the final in just over an hour’s time; a major miracle to get him back to full fitness. “I’d be hopeful,” said vet Tom Kearney, from Abbeyfeale, “He got back up very quickly (from the tumble). It’s definitely not a muscle anyway — we’ll let him lie down for ten minutes, see how he is when he gets up. At that stage, we’ll know.”
Well, the first miracle occurred and Kyle took his place at slips; the major miracle, however, was too much to ask – he took off well, battled like a lion, but just didn’t have it. Stretched ligaments in the back leg – not even Mick Galvin could have cured that.
Mick Galvin you say – who’s he? He’s a muscleman, that’s what he is, a manipulator of bad backs and sore muscles, one of those people with gifted hands who will trace a pain to its source, then work on the cure. In Clonmel, invaluable. “Don’t ask me what it is,” says Mick; “I just started doing it with my own dogs, then with my friends’ dogs, and it grew from there – 30 years at it now. I can sense weakness or soreness down into the joints. You then have to decide if this is ‘referred’ pain or not – that’s where someone like me comes in. If the spine isn’t aligned properly it can affect many other areas and that’s where it will show, but you’re only wasting your time treating those areas. Sometimes people don’t even realise their dog is injured — there are no obvious signs, the injury doesn’t present itself, but it’s there.” And the dog can’t tell you, right? Wrong! “Dogs can’t talk to you but they CAN tell you; a dog that was always waiting for you — jumping up on the gate in the morning — is no longer there, or a dog that was always galloping ahead of you is now lagging behind you, or dogs that are hesitating about jumping into the car – those are signs, and people should pick up on those. A dog doesn’t have to be lame to be wrong.”
Mind you, bringing your potential champion to a guy like Mick when he HAS gone lame might be all a bit late. “Some people think it’s like going to a car-mechanic with a broken-down car, that you get a new part that will keep them going for another 10,000 miles. It’s not like that at all. I’ve been with Classic winners, big Cup winners, but I’d have seen those dogs regularly, on the Monday after a Saturday race for example, on the Thursday after a Wednesday gallop. The modern breed have become so fast, so finely-tuned, that they need regular maintenance. They are tremendous animals but it’s very important to stay on top of them. They’re running literally on four pins and they put themselves under enormous pressure. We all know what it’s like to take a false step down a stairs or something like that, you get the twinge in your back – a greyhound is flying up a field, sands shifting under them, turning sharply this way and that. In those conditions, they can go wrong even from course to course. You have to stay with them. Often, after I’ve manipulated them, I see it in their eyes, the change, the relief – they’ll kind of shake themselves out, they’re a different dog really.”
Even the most renowned trainers use a muscleman – the Matthews family, for example, with former Irish long-distance champion Gerry O’Reilly. Gary Matthews: “Gerry was looking after Adios Alonso for Gerry Holian last year (Derby winner) and boy, Alonso took some falls! I was waiting for him to slow down but he never did, and it didn’t take us too long to work out why, and who was working the dogs for Gerry Holian – that was Gerry Reilly, a great manipulator. It’s a good step forward – it’s all about animal welfare, making sure the dogs are properly looked after, and a good physio is very important now.”
Sometimes, however, and even with the best of manipulators on your team, the final say on the final day is with the great manipulator in the sky.
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