Former jockey Robbie McNamara has spoken of the mental gymnastics riders are required to engage in to do one of the most dangerous jobs in sport.
McNamara’s career in the saddle came to an end after he suffered spinal injuries in a fall at Wexford in 2015.
However, the accident, which left the 28-year-old with no movement from the waist down, hasn’t prevented him embarking on a career as a trainer, one which has already yielded two winners from a small team of horses.
In the wake of Flat jockey Freddy Tylicki’s devastating fall at Kempton on 31 October, McNamara featured on RTÉ 2fm’s Game On to discuss his own road to recovery, the challenges facing Tylicki, and the awareness jockeys have of the perils they face on a daily basis.
“If I got back and got walking tomorrow, I’d go back doing the same thing again.”
Racing broadcaster Matt Chapman, who established a GoFundMe page for Tylicki which has proved hugely successful, was also on hand to discuss the campaign he instigated.
While jockeys are acutely aware of the potentially life-changing consequences they face every time they get a leg up, McNamara revealed it was something that isn’t – and couldn’t be – discussed.
“It’s an elephant in the room that nobody talks about,” he said.
“If you’re worrying about that every time you go out, you’re in the wrong job.
“You have to put it to one side and it’s not something that’s talked about.
“I know even a few times after I came out of hospital, I went racing a few times and I didn’t even bother going into the weighing room.
“I went in a few times and I got on great with the lads, but it’s not something you’d like to see – one of your ex-colleagues coming in in a wheelchair as you’re about to head out in a beginners’ chase.
“It not very good for the psychological side of things.
“It’s something everybody knows is there, the risks you’re taking, but you put them to one side and you just get on with it.”
McNamara was adamant that injuries to fellow riders are rarely enough to make jockeys give up the sport they love.
“They were filling me with false hope and I started to believe it myself. As soon as I accepted it and just got on with it, I found things an awful lot easier.”
The Newbridge-based trainer saw John Thomas McNamara paralysed in a fall in 2013. The legendary amateur passed away in July, but his cousin’s passion for racing and the lure of race-riding remains undiminished by the personal tragedies he’s encountered.
“These things happen,” he said. “It happened to John Thomas about two years before I got my fall.
“I was aware of the consequences, of what can happen.
“It wasn’t going to stop me.
“If I got back and got walking tomorrow, I’d go back doing the same thing again.”
Regarding Tylicki’s T7 paralysis, McNamara conceded: “It’s a lot to take in.
“It’s not as if it’s a gradual thing. It’s landed on him very, very quick. It’s a huge adjustment to make.”
While positive thinking may prove crucial for Tylicki in the months ahead, McNamara insisted that his own recovery was aided by abandoning what he regarded as false hope.
“Freddy, from what his surgeon was saying, I presume his spine was severed, whereas mine was damaged,” McNamara said.
“Mine wasn’t severed but it was crushed, so they kind of don’t want to say (that paralysis is permanent) for fear something comes back, but I know myself nothing will.
“When Freddy’s surgeon came out and said it so quickly, I presume it’s severed.
“That worst thing for me was, everybody around me, they were saying ‘you never know, something might go right’.
“They were filling me with false hope and I started to believe it myself. As soon as I accepted it and just got on with it, I found things an awful lot easier.”
