Fragrant Dawn had run a spectacular race. Nobody had thought he could do it. I believed – if ridden the way he should be ridden – that he could and he would. He did. We ghosted to victory.
It was my opinion against that of the rest of the world and at such times there are usually only two outcomes: you either come out a hero or an idiot.
I went out to ride the race on a horse I’d never sat on and I rode a race to remember. Everyone has their moment of glory. That was mine. I was no hero, but at least I wasn’t an idiot.
Curiously, in the Queen Mother Champion Chase that same year, with the very opposite set of facts, the result was the very same as in the Tripleprint Gold Cup. Josh Gifford did not want to run Deep Sensation in the Champion Chase because he thought the horse wanted further – 2.5 miles instead of the 2 miles in the race. Very simply, he didn’t believe Deep Sensation had what it took to win the race.
I had ridden Deep Sensation at Wetherby, in a trial race – a dress rehearsal for the Queen Mother Champion Chase – just four weeks prior. Circumstances hadn’t suited him on the day and he got beaten, finishing second. I had ridden the race so as not to affect his confidence, but I had learnt something from it; our defeat had taught us an invaluable lesson. I realized that Deep Sensation was a complicated ride; as a jockey riding him, you couldn’t go and make your own pace because he was a reluctant horse at the best of times. Instead, he needed to be carried into a race by the other horses. At Wetherby, there had been insufficient pace in the race. I knew – with a fair degree of certainty – that this would not be the case in the Champion Chase.
When we returned to the second enclosure that afternoon at Wetherby, I walked up to Robin Eliot, Deep Sensation’s owner, and I said simply, ‘This horse will win the Queen Mother Champion Chase.’
Robin Eliot looked at me, bemused. Then he chuckled nervously and gave me a pat on the back. I couldn’t blame him for his scepticism – it was a bold claim from someone who had just been beaten.
But a good jockey isn’t one who never makes mistakes; it’s one who has the ability to learn from them. I had learnt enough about Deep Sensation to carry with me that level of certainty. I knew he wanted sun on his back, he wanted good ground and he needed maximum pace. And I knew in the Queen Mother Champion Chase that year there was going to be a lot of pace. I was confident this would play into my hands. I believed in Deep Sensation. I believed that when the conditions were right, this horse was better than the rest of them.
I made my case to both owner, Robin Eliot, and trainer, Josh Gifford. I said, ‘In the Queen Mother Champion Chase, there will be a lot of pace because Howard Johnson’s Boro Smackeroo will run, and if Boro Smackeroo runs in the Queen Mother Champion Chase, we will win the Queen Mother Champion Chase.’
Robin Eliot was somewhat convinced; Josh Gifford was not. The last thing Josh Gifford said to me – and this will remain my abiding memory of this man, my friend, one of the most respected trainers in the country – as he was legging me up in that race, was, ‘We’re in the wrong fucking race, but good luck anyway.’
And with those words in my head and a smile on my lips, I cantered off to the start.
To many, the Queen Mother Champion Chase is considered the ultimate test of speed and agility. That year it was being touted as a two-horse contest – Katabatic and Waterloo Boy were the top two contenders, well-backed and strongly fancied to win. When we were down at the start, I was exchanging a laugh with Peter Scudamore, who was joking with me aboard Cyphrate.
He said, ‘Declan, you and I are playing for third fiddle at best!’
I laughed with him, but third fiddle couldn’t have been further from my mind.
I had different ideas.
We jumped off in the race and as I expected, Boro Smackeroo initiated a phenomenal pace on fast ground at Cheltenham. It was music to my ears. Below me, Deep Sensation was jumping magnificently. Halfway down the back straight, Boro Smackeroo had a commanding lead, but the beauty of this for me was that the other horses were following him closely, not letting him get away. Perfect, I thought, they are playing right into my hands.
At the top of the hill, Boro Smackeroo was in the lead, Peter Scudamore on Cyphrate was close behind him on the outside, Katabatic was outside him, Fragrant Dawn was in between them, and I was trailing behind, thinking, Boys, you guys just tussle for the lead, I’m happy to stay here and pick it up from whichever one of you eventually carries me to the last.
We ran down the hill and I eased out to the centre of the fences. Cyphrate took over the lead from Boro Smackeroo and Fragrant Dawn followed Cyphrate through. I sat in behind, jumping the second last and went between them turning into the straight.
Truth be told, I was under pressure at this point – Deep Sensation was an intelligent horse, but a reluctant one – he wasn’t going forward for me in the way that I wanted. I thought of Josh Gifford’s words on the one hand, and my conviction on the other. And I stood my ground. Deep Sensation may have been temperamental, but he was talented. I had already brought him to his cruising speed. I knew he would deliver for me if I was successful in bringing out the best in him from this point on. The trick was not to commit him, not to let him think about the race. In fact, my goal was to not even let him know he was square in the middle of one.
Going into the last fence, I got up the inside of Fragrant Dawn and just on the outside of Cyphrate, as I thought this would serve to motivate Deep Sensation by giving him cover. Such was the rhythm I got him into, that Deep Sensation responded in exactly the way I had hoped – he crept forward, his competitive spirit burning, and quickening up the hill won ‘the wrong fucking race’ by three-quarters of a length.
After the race, Josh Gifford would say about Deep Sensation, ‘Declan has made a man of him. He has always been one of my favourites. This is my greatest thrill after Aldaniti.’
Victory is its own reward. But for Josh Gifford to compare my win to Bob Champion’s victory in the Grand National was more than I could ask or imagine.
I was king of the castle on St Patrick’s Day.
So, when Ami asks me to recount races with ‘meaning’, these are the ones I pick. And I pick them not because they showcase my horsemanship at its best. I pick them because they signify an innate character trait that defines me. I pick them because they demonstrate, far more accurately than I could put in words, my iron-clad belief in the decisions I make – and then, my will to follow through, no matter the odds.
Because at the end of the day, decision-making is what sets people apart in this profession – believing in something, making a decision and then owning that decision. All the better if you are making a call that nobody agrees with – eyebrows are raised along with the stakes, and you find yourself alone in the middle of a desert, with no cover. In both races, the Tripleprint Gold Cup as well as the Queen Mother Champion Chase, I was staking not only my reputation, but equally the owner’s, the trainer’s and the horse’s. If I had been proven wrong, there would have been no burying my head in the sand, the responsibility for the outcome would have been mine alone. But the water from an oasis always tastes sweet. So, without a doubt, it had been a gamble, but I believed that it was worth it.
I believed in the horse. I believed in my ability as a horseman.
This is what defined me, what lay at my core: I believed.
No matter what, I always believed.
And belief is the supreme emotion.
The bigger the obstacle, the greater my resolve.
The bigger the race, the better I was.
The 1993/94 season was my best yet. In the twelve months before my accident I won more races than I could dream of.
I won the Irish Champion Hurdle, I won the H&T Walker Gold Cup, I won the Queen Mother Champion Chase, I won the Melling Chase, I won the Mackeson Gold Cup, I won the Tripleprint Gold Cup, I won the Bula Hurdle, I won the Lanzarote Hurdle, I won the Cheltenham Silver Trophy Chase.
I was riding on the crest of a mighty wa
ve.
Everything I touched turned to gold.
I did not win the Swinton Handicap Hurdle.
Instead, I lost my career and almost my life.
I was labelled the jockey who cheated death.
‘Great,’ you say, ‘truly great. You cheated death, that’s remarkable. But … do you feel like life cheated you?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No chance. Because I was cheating life by pretending to be a jockey in the first place.’
She’s right, you know, my ghost. Everybody has sins.
A Helmet and a Phone
It is a safe house for these men who choose to live dangerously. The place where they dress to perform; the place where they undress after they perform. A sacred sanctuary of sorts where horsemen bond, the only place on the racecourse where rivalry bows to friendship.
It is a big boys’ locker room, the jockeys’ weighing room – you walk in and it hits you, the energy and intensity and testosterone; it engulfs you.
It is the smell that gets you first, the overpowering smell of leather and saddles and sweat … and men.
Visually, it feels cluttered, but there is complete order to the chaos. Wooden benches run along the perimeter of the room, saddle racks hang neatly in a row on the walls above, clothes hooks over the benches, shoes below. In the middle of the room are large wooden tables where the valets do their work.
The atmosphere is jovial. Alive. There is plenty of back-slapping and hand-shaking and camaraderie and laughter. The noise level grabs you, the snippets of conversation typical of what one would expect of a group of high-achieving guys thrown together in a small space – there’s talk of horses and Julia Roberts and trainers and movies and sex and girls and cars and more girls. If someone with authority walked in and demanded silence at the top of his lungs, it would take a good five minutes to achieve his intended result. If he was lucky.
Today, all this was different.
Today, there had been a catastrophe of immeasurable magnitude. One of their own had suffered a fall and nobody knew whether he was to live or die.
There was no buzz, no activity, just the defeated air of unspeakable loss. Moments ago, there had been live coverage from the BBC on the wall-mounted TV screen, showing scenes of the fall, real-time updates on the condition of horse and rider. Then, suddenly, the images stopped, cutting straight to a sober-faced Sir Peter O’Sullevan, who announced gravely, in his distinctive, measured tone, ‘We will bring you news of Declan Murphy when we have it.’
A subdued silence descended. What did this mean? Why was there no more news? Could he be …? No, he couldn’t possibly. Or could he? No one wanted to think the word, let alone say it out loud.
A few minutes later, in the midst of a hush rarely ever felt in a jockeys’ weighing room, the course doctor entered. He had objects in his hand: my colours and helmet, dyed an unnatural shade of red.
Brave men averted their eyes.
The objects placed wordlessly on the table, the unfortunate harbinger of gloom departed swiftly, knowing his place, leaving the jockeys with the privacy to grieve. Blood seeped from the helmet, running a long, thin river across the table, then spilling over the edge in slow, rhythmic drops.
A portent.
Silence screamed with horror. The sour, metallic stench of death spread languidly, as if in no rush to fill this space it now claimed as its own. The walls closed in. Thirty horsemen stood frozen in the moment, as though confronted by something not of this world. The air hung thick and heavy, like a jockey’s lead cloth.
Then, the silence was jarred – suddenly, unexpectedly. Absurd tones of a happy melody filled the room.
An uneasy shuffling of feet, the dull murmur of voices; the awkwardness of the timing of it all. Irritation now, annoyance even – whose phone could it be and why was the owner not claiming it?
Heads turned this way and that, and finally converged on one corner of the room, on what was my spot on the bench, where all my things lay, eerily neat, exactly as I would have wanted to find them when I returned from my race.
Jockey Ross Campbell, standing nearest, moved forward, hesitating only slightly before he rummaged through my bag to retrieve the damning instrument.
In his hand, the phone continued its merry jingle.
In his eyes, he might as well have seen the devil himself.
When he opened his mouth to speak, it was barely a whisper. ‘It’s Joanna,’ he said, looking down. Then, shaking his head, he passed the phone to the man next to him. ‘I’m not answering it.’
The man next to him recoiled, hands in the air – not me.
The third person proved more gallant, thumb moving determinedly towards the green ‘talk’ button. Then, he weakened, as the full weight of what he was taking on sunk in. ‘Fuck, I’m not answering it.’
The cursed, obstinate gall of it all.
And so it was passed from man to man, like a child’s game of pass the parcel, played to the tune of the ringing phone.
Brave men lost their mettle.
You answer it. No, you answer it. For fuck’s sake, someone answer it.
Then, abruptly, the ringing stopped.
And mercifully, there was silence.
The Lawyer I Never Was
Remember how I said I never wanted to be a jockey?
Remember when I said I always wanted to be a lawyer?
The King George VI Chase on Boxing Day is one of the most prestigious races of the jumping calendar. On 26 December 1993, I was riding Bradbury Star over a trip that I realized was just beyond his best, and to have any chance of winning, I knew I would have to give him a really economical ride and use all the momentum I could find to have him running to the finish.
At the second last we jumped five abreast. Barton Bank and Adrian Maguire were getting into top gear, The Fellow and Adam Kondrat quickened yet again, Young Hustler and Carl Llewellyn were tapped for toe. Going to the last fence, Barton Bank was really galloping, Bradbury Star was still happy enough and The Fellow was cooked.
I concentrated on jumping the last fence well before committing my horse, and hoped he would find enough to get past Barton Bank. He did find enough, but Barton Bank found more.
I did not pick up my stick until I felt it really necessary, which was 100 yards from the line, and used it to encourage my horse to dig a bit deeper. In the end we were beaten by a short head by a courageous horse with a lot of class, who had been given a marvellous ride by Adrian Maguire.
It was considered by many to be one of the best finishes to a big race in years. In Donn McClean’s words, ‘December 26 saw one of the greatest King Georges in living memory, one that will be remembered for the titanic struggle between two men and two beasts. Four champions.’
But despite it all, the local stewards at Kempton decided that the riding didn’t quite make the cut for them. They handed both Adrian Maguire and myself a two-day ban because they considered that we had ‘not given our mounts enough time to respond to the stick’. I knew expressly that this wasn’t the case. Neither Adrian nor I had abused our position as professional jockeys. We used our whips in rhythm with the horses’ strides, gave them time to respond and made contact in the correct place. It wasn’t anything other than what could be reasonably expected from a jockey in a race.
The Jockey Club’s whip instruction (H9) was topical at the time – there was considerable inconsistency among the various steward panels at different racecourses on what the rules were, and bans were being administered arbitrarily without full clarity on the exact nature of the committing offence. I felt, on principle, that it was about time the issue was resolved once and for all. I knew with certainty that every jockey in the weighing room had worked hard on the new guidelines and rode with them in mind, and I believed the Kempton stewards had misinterpreted both what had happened as well as their own instructions – only a jockey can determine how much time a horse needs to respond and whether it is responding.
So, in a move aimed at forcing a review
of the Jockey Club’s controversial whip regulations, I decided to appeal against the ban. I wanted to do this not so much to clear my own name, but because I felt that the reputation of jockeys, as a whole, was being tarnished in the public eye.
I wasn’t alone in my feelings. The ban imposed on us – and what it stood for – outraged trainers and jockeys across the industry, and there was an outcry against the inconsistencies in the application of the guidelines.
Toby Balding, chairman of the Jump Committee of the National Trainers Federation, accused the Kempton stewards of ‘nit-picking’. He said, ‘Two highly competent jockeys were riding at the top of their ability. If that was wrong, then we’d all better give up.’
Barton Bank’s trainer, the Duke (David Nicholson) said, ‘It is a great shame that a marvellous horse race was spoilt by a stupid and scandalous decision from the stewards.’
However, neither he nor Adrian Maguire chose to appeal against the suspension.
Not so me.
In January 1994, I had the opportunity to wear that tailor-made suit and those shiny new shoes, and become someone I had always dreamt I would be – the lawyer I never was. In a bold move that shocked many, I decided to dispense with legal counsel and represent myself in appealing against the ban. Nobody thought I had a chance of winning, but with every shred of visual and professional evidence supporting my case, I was totally confident of the outcome.
At a ninety-minute hearing, I, along with the members of the Disciplinary Committee, viewed head-on camera evidence in slow motion that showed exactly when I made contact with the whip, and that my horse had two or three strides to respond. This, I felt as a professional jockey, was adequate time to know whether he was responding. I argued that I had nothing against the H9 – in fact I thought it was well-intentioned and good for the sport, but only if guidelines were taken as guidelines, and applied with flexibility and consistency. However, if the guideline was to be administered not only as a rule, but as a rule of such intensity, then it highlighted the need for professional stewarding to enforce it.
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