Michael O'Sullivan: A level-headed, honest lad who never wasted an opportunity
RIP: Embassy Gardens and Michael O'Sullivan winning for trainer Willie Mullins from Monty's Star. Pic: Healy Racing
It’s having to use the past tense that tugs at your heart, your head and your gut.
Christ, what must it be like for Mikey O’Sullivan’s parents, William and Bernie, and for his family.
He was only 24 when he died, in the early hours of Sunday morning, as a result of injuries suffered doing what he loved to do. Immersed in what the O’Sullivans were always immersed in.
As a child of the East Cork-West Waterford point-to-point scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I have always had a particular grá for hunter chases and especially, the artist formerly known as the Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham.
In an era when Irish winners at Prestbury Park were of the hen’s teeth variety, William propelling Lovely Citizen - owned and bred by his father Eoin, and trained by his brother Eugene - to victory in the amateurs’ Gold Cup was magical.
As the O’Sullivan family celebrated, so did the Cork-Waterford point-to-point family and so did the racing family. How couldn’t you?
That was 1991 and the jockey-and-trainer siblings were still in their 20s. Eugene was attempting to build a training string in Lombardstown, while William ran the family farm. They were the figureheads but everyone mucked in when it came to both spheres.
In time, kids arrived and that meant more hands for the multitude of tasks. They all learned the value of hard work and honesty, that the jobs had to be completed before you thought of anything else.
Eugene saddled a second Foxhunter victory during the Covid Festival in 2020. This time, it was his daughter in the saddle. Maxine gave It Came To Pass a peach of a ride and while it was weird achieving an Olympian feat in almost complete silence due to the Lockdown restrictions, the 28-year-old was beaming at the thought of seeing her father, and her cousins, Michael and Alan.
The two boys were William’s sons and were amateur jockeys in their own right, part of the team. There is a lovely photo of the three of them taken by Pat Healy.
“It was so special,” Maxine told me for an interview in the following week. “I was just dying to see my family and stuff. I just was so happy for them and for me. I knew they would be so happy.
“My two little cousins were leading him up. When they came running over that was a great moment to see them. Michael and Alan, the two boys… I call them ‘little’ because they are younger than me but they are not (little). It was just great to see them. It was really special. They were so happy. That was brilliant.”
As the O’Sullivan family celebrated, so did the Cork-Waterford point-to-point family and so did the racing family. How couldn’t you?
Three years later, Mikey was grabbing his own slice of the pie, registering an opening day double on Marine Nationale in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, and Jazzy Matty in the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle.
He was a newbie to the professional scene, having made a relatively late switch to the paid ranks the summer before. It felt like a rags-to-riches story, as he bagged two Grade 1s at the Dublin Racing Festival for owner-trainer Barry Connell, on board Marine Nationale and Good Land.
But as Connell himself had pointed out, this was a guy who had learned the ropes through the flags, ridden in more than 300 races. He wasn’t a rookie. What’s more, he had an honours Ag Science degree under his belt. With that out of the way, he could turn his attentions totally to being a jockey.
When I called Mikey to do a piece for the Examiner before Cheltenham in 2023, it was impossible not to be impressed. He spoke like a far older man, who had faced the pressure of riding a hot prospect at the most important meeting in his sport on countless occasions.
But what was clear was that he was never going to be one for extremes of emotion. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy the good days. But with his parents’ life view, working with animals, growing up on a dairy farm and riding horses meant he was very well versed on bottom line, on pragmatics, on the vicissitudes of life. The immaturity of youth had long been shed.
He kept emphasising hard work. And he wasn’t talking about himself. He talked about his parents. His father. How riding was always a pastime for him because of the work. That had to come first. And yet, despite it all, they found time to ferry him around and back him, when need be.
Mikey absolutely didn’t trot that line out as something he knew he should be saying. It was laced with feeling, with gratitude. He was happy to go to UCD when his parents pushed him towards college after the Leaving. It was the right and sensible thing to do.
“Our family, we wouldn’t be over-exuberant,” he said in these pages. “They’re a country farming family and they all work hard. So there’s no one coming up telling me how great I am or anything like that but they are happy for me and very supportive and without them, I wouldn’t be where I am.”
No surprise then, that he also had a Master’s in level-headedness, dealing with the Twin Imposters as Kipling recommended.
After the recent split with Connell, there was a growing link with Willie Mullins, and a connection with French-based duo, Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm. There aren’t too many Irish jockeys that could ride a winner in France and do the post-race interview on TV in the local lingo.
Mikey O’Sullivan could and it said a lot about him and where he came from that this was the case. Opportunities were never to be wasted.
Now, as the O’Sullivan family mourns, so does the Cork-Waterford point-to-point family and so does the racing family.
