It all added up to life as a jockey for McNamara
The vicissitudes of race riding are well known to all racing fans, but for jockeys the chasm between success, on the one hand, and being out injured, on the other, is something they have to cope with on a daily basis.
So it was for Andrew McNamara in this past month when, after scoring one of his biggest successes steering Beef Or Salmon to a close victory over Gold Cup winner War Of Attrition in the James Nicholson Gold Cup at Down Royal, he was on top of the world.
Just five days later he was brought down to earth with a shattering bang at Thurles when his mount in the first race, Michael Hourigan’s City Storm was brought down and Andrew received nasty facial injuries and a seriously bruised shoulder just to remind him that racing can be a very punishing leveller.
This weekend, though, he’s back and riding Beef Or Salmon in the Betfair Chase at Haydock today against the likes of Kauto Star, l’Ami, Kingscliff and so forth, while tomorrow he rides Newmill in the Morgiana Hurdles at Punchestown against such as Brave Inca, Iktitaf and Asian Maze.
The quality of both races has already got fans drooling about them and McNamara too cannot wait to get stuck back in.
“I could have ridden at Clonmel on Thursday, but I decided to give myself a little more time before the weekend,” he reports. “My face was very battered and swollen and my shoulder very sore after the fall at Thurles, but I’m ready to go now.”
Like most people in racing, McNamara was born into it, but he was too young to remember the success of Boreen Prince which was trained by his father to win the Arkle Trophy in 1985. In fact he was only a year old when that happened, but he has many fond memories of his father’s charges while he was growing up.
“I can remember horses like Desert Lord winning the Kerry National or Bohemian Castle who won a good few races for dad and who was really the first horse I rode out at home, but the thing was that horses were central to everything at home when I was growing up. We had ponies and hunters and we did a fierce amount of hunter trials and, of course, we were racing at every opportunity.”
Becoming a jockey was something he always wanted to do, but as a very tall young man it appeared that he would be too heavy to make the grade and while he had dreamed about a professional career, he never really felt it would happen.
That was why, following excellent Leaving Cert. results he immediately signed on at the University of Limerick to study mathematics, but, “having got bored with that after a while”, he jacked it in after a few years. His ennui was underlined by the fact he was no longer attending lectures, preferring to doss off instead and do anything other than study.
His yearning to go racing was overpowering.
“I said it to my dad that I was bored and wanted to give full-time racing a try and he didn’t mind too much. My mother wasn’t quite as laid back about it and she made me go back to college for another month or two. But by Christmas time in the third year I’d had enough of it.
“I had been riding out at home and riding point-to-points, so I just kept on doing the same really, but putting more into it. It took a while to get going, but about two months after I left college I rode a winner one Sunday, a double the next and a treble the Sunday after that in point-to-points and from there on everyone wanted to use me. I had a good run and won the novice point-to-point title and at the end of the season I turned professional.”
A novelty almost among jockeys at six foot tall, McNamara confesses he has to “keep an eye on his weight” but says he is able to maintain a stable weight without the fluctuations many other jockeys have to contend with.
Regarded by many as a ‘natural horseman’ it did not take long for the youngster to establish his credentials and through the summer of ‘05 and into that winter he began riding winners on a regular basis, mainly for near neighbour Michael Hourigan.
Along with Denis O’Regan he was doing the majority of the riding work for the Patrickswell handler and when O’Regan turned down the job of stable jockey to continue his association with Noel Meade, Hourigan stuck with McNamara, handing him the pick of the horses in the yard with the exception of Beef or Salmon and Mossbank.
“There were plenty of good horses in the yard, what with the likes of Hi Cloy and Kerryhead Windfarm and while I didn’t have too many winners, I was getting a lot of experience,” he recalls.
Victory aboard Hi Cloy at Leopardstown at Christmas was very welcome, but it was at a low-key race, the Kinlough Brae Chase at Thurles, that a portent of bigger things to come was seen.
In that race, Newmill, trained by John Murphy in Cork and ridden by Robert Power won handy. Andrew had ridden for Murphy in the past as well as having close family connections through his dad, and was delighted to see the horse win. However, when Power got injured before Cheltenham, he got the call to ride him in Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham.
Famously, Murphy was undecided as to whether or not to send Newmill to the Champion Hurdle or the Champion Chase, but in the end plumped for the latter and in doing so gave McNamara his biggest day as a professional.
He remembers the race with almost surgical clarity, although its defining moment – the incident at the third fence which took out favourite Kauto Star, Dempsey and nearly brought old stager Moscow Flyer down – he didn’t see because of the front-running tactics which had been adopted.
“I suppose we were always more hopeful than confident going into the race and I discussed it with John and we decided to jump him off handy and wide and for me to drop my hands for the first few fences to see how he jumped. The straight up the hill to the first turn is quite long and the idea was to have him well settled by then.
“Realistically I knew he’d be leading by then and I expected to be challenged by Mister McGoldrick and Central House and we were obviously worried about Moscow Flyer, whose form in the race was obvious and whose stable was coming right back to form.
“After the third I new something had happened, but I didn’t know what and as we headed out into the country I was just concentrating on my fella. He tends to blow a lot in his races, which is usually the sign of an unfit horse, but not with him. Climbing the hill out the back he gave two big blows and I was a bit disappointed because I didn’t expect him to do it that early.
“But he was jumping well and I managed to get a bit of a breather into him, so when we got to the top of the hill he was travelling really well and I knew at that stage he was going to get to the winning post and it was going to take something good to beat him.
“He did clatter the second last but he was very quick to get away from the back of it and once he got his momentum back, we were home and hosed. I looked back at that stage and could see Mister McGoldrick was going nowhere. Once we got over the last there was no stopping him.”
It was, without doubt the biggest day of the young man’s racing life and he admits to being “taken aback” by the raucous welcome they got coming into the winner’s enclosure.
Even so, he was able to use the victory as a springboard for his own burgeoning success and, on being retained by Hourigan as stable jockey this season, he now also had access to the great Beef Or Salmon.
The two cemented their relationship with the victory over War Of Attrition at Down Royal and the 22-year-old hopes they can take the partnership a step further today.
“He showed at Down Royal that anytime he’s in a head-to-head battle he usually gets his head in front at the end and while Haydock will probably be a good test of stamina, he certainly has a good chance,” the jockey says.
The ground at Punchestown tomorrow may not be to Newmill’s liking, so it could be an up and down weekend, but for McNamara he is simply delighted to be back and also to have a chance once more of riding two great horses this weekend and underlining his talent over the rest of the year.
He may have jacked in a promising academic career, but he’s certain he’s found his niche.
