O’Farrell kicks Taunton faux pas into touch with starring role on Vista
That in itself would have been a remarkable tale but O’Farrell’s moment of magic came five weeks to the day after the most mortifying experience of his fledgling career during another handicap 90 minutes down the road in Taunton.
The baby-faced 21-year old had the race at his mercy that day in Somerset after jumping the last on board the 9-2 favourite Arrayan when he became unbalanced and his foot slipped from the stirrup.
Thewas a costly one for the young Irish jockey, who had already claimed four winners for trainer David Pipe, as it allowed Highway Code slip by him to the finish.
“It’s one of those things you wish would never happen to you,” he said yesterday. “It happens in racing even though it shouldn’t. It has happened to a lot of fellas besides me but I just want to move on.
“My confidence has never really been the same since I got that fall. Personally, I didn’t think I’d ever rode as well since but to get a winner like this won’t half boost my confidence and I can just ride better from here.
“In fairness to David Pipe and the owners they were the best in the world. I got back in, they asked me what happened and said ‘look, just don’t worry about it, these things happen. Forget about it and move on’. You can’t ask for any more because I never felt as low as I did then.
“I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me up. I didn’t want to face the music.
“ At the time they handled it brilliantly and I can’t thank them enough for that because if they hadn’t I could have taken it an awful lot worse and I might not be here today for that reason.”
Pipe himself made light of the incident when told of O’Farrell’s gratitude some minutes later and pointed out that more established jockeys have experienced something similar — AP McCoy and Robert Thornton among them. “Everyone makes mistakes and you just have to learn by your mistakes,” said the Wellington-based trainer.
O’Farrell repaid that faith in some style in the Pertemps Final on board Buena Vista yesterday, a horse that knows these parts and this race well having finished fifth, second and first in the event the previous three years.
“This is a dream come true,” he beamed after an assured ride. “It’s all anyone ever wants, is to ride winners at Cheltenham. It’s unbelievable for my first ride to actually get a winner. It’s just unbelievable.”
It certainly is, but O’Farrell’s first ambition was to be a footballer. He never really cherished any racing aspirations until he was 16 when his brother began life as an amateur jockey back in Ireland.
His journey since has taken him from the Kildare Racing Academy via John ‘Shark’ Hanlon’s stables — where he rode out for Charlie Swan — and to David Pipe’s yard, the latter after answering a job advertisement in the paper.
“It is a bug, really,” he said of the racing game. “Once you get it you are screwed because you are stuck with it.”
Him more than most now.
