The tragedy of this story is its heartbreaking premature conclusion. Michael O'Sullivan had everything ahead, a 24 -year -old with a rare talent and a tremendous temperament, but today there is only a vacuum. A family and sport are mourning.
How to write these words. This is the point in the year in which dreams take the flight, since Cheltenham appears in sight, but suddenly that festival, such a happy distraction, feels irrelevant. O'Sullivan illuminated Prestbury Park in 2023 and is unfathomable, we will never see it again.
Because if a rider was ever made for that stage, it was Michael O'Sullivan, a former winner of the Ireland Sub-21 Punctual Championship, a young man from Lombardstown near Mallow in Cork County who had graduated from the University University of Dublin with a title in agricultural sciences.
Its reproduction for work was impeccable. His father, William, had won the persecution of Foxhunters in 1991 in Cheltenham with charming citizen for his brother, Eugene. Michael's cousin, Maxine, won the same race, known as the Amateur Gold Cup, in 2020, when he passed, another of his uncle's horses.
However, there was something in the young Michael that made him stand out. Tall and thin, polite and respectful, he was the type of person with whom you could make a conversation and get positive easily. He was committed to his work, passionate about his profession.
And he could ride. How could I ride. Cheltenham, the fiercest sand, ask riders of riders as anywhere else and no race is more anxious than the obstacle of the Supreme Rookies, the one that starts the Jamboree of four days with roar of the stands that continues to rush.
Jockey Michael O'Sullivan died on Sunday, 24, for injuries he had suffered during a fall
O'Sullivan, a twice winner in Cheltenham, was involved in an accumulation of five horses in Thurles
Two years ago, O'Sullivan arrived at the Festival confident with The Mount On Marine Nationale for the Supreme. He had only had a previous trip in Cheltenham, he had only become a professional six months before and wondered if the occasion would be too soon.
“On the morning of March 14, 2023, I stayed out of the stable patio of Cheltenham racecourse in the download area, speaking with Charlie Swan,” Ruby Walsh recalled in his Irish Examiner column on February 8.
'A figure hunched behind us before approaching, looking for advice.
'Michael O'Sullivan did not want to know how his horse should ride or what we think of the race. I wanted to know about the track. I wanted any small advice that I felt I should know. Charlie expressed some ideas, I interviewed with one or two more. He thanked us for our time and left.
He absorbed all the wisdom that these giants gave and returned to a winner, an impressive one. When you look at the repetition, your eye is attracted to O'Sullivan, a couple of dark glasses fixed on the leaders of the equine platoon, their yellow and black silks through rivals at 32 mph before unleashing an unstoppable load.
“We had the best horse in the race, and we had the best rider,” said Barry Connell, the owner, Barry Connell, aware of the magnitude of his words. Honestly, he is unreal. It is a future star.
To a large extent, O'Sullivan would be associated with Jazzy Matty for Gordon Elliott in The Boodles Hurdle, a frantic four -year disability in which anything can happen, with a resounding success. The days do not get much better, but he took everything with his elegant step.
“When you are really greedy for more,” he said. “I hope this is not the last one I have, anyway.”
O'Sullivan was placed in an induced coma, but tragically died surrounded by his family
A statement from the Irish Cavalry Regulatory Board confirmed the tragic news on Sunday
It shouldn't have been. That double should have been a base for many, many more. O'Sullivan could have separated from O'Connell, the man who had also provided another horse of degree one in good land, the past fall, but many coaches were admiring his talent.
Willie Mullins, for example, had given him good walks lately. O'Sullivan had associated with the Embassy Gardens for the champion in the Irish Gold Cup in February, the reward for the victory he achieved in the same horse in Tramore, the coastal course in County Waterford, on New Year's Day .
He also had allies in France. Noel George's Chantilly courty trip he gave to do it. Again in Bangor-on-Dee last November it was a first-line master class.
O'Sullivan spoke with Mail Sport that afternoon, excited that he “would go where necessary for the winners” and it seemed sure there would be many more conversations of this nature, outside the weight rooms, with him in the coming years as His progress in the race.
Now here we are, unfortunately reflecting last time. It is rare for a rider to lose his life in a racecourse; Since the change of the century in Ireland, there were two in the Annus Horribilis of 2003: Kieran Kelly (August) and Sean Cleary (October), perished after the respective falls in Kilbeggan and Galway, while Jack Tyner never recovered from a fall In Dungarvan point to point in October 2011.
Kelly is a tragic comparison. He had also dazzled in Cheltenham, giving Hardy Eustace impeccably in the Royal & Sun Alliance obstacle that march and seemed to be a regular in all higher races. His death, after four days at the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, still chases Walsh.
There is no doubt that O'Sullivan's death will have a deep impact on the corridors of this generation, many of which were on that fateful day when his mount, Wee Charlie, crashed in the final obstacle in a two -mile disability € 6,875 to the winner.
It was a horrible incident. Wee Charlie was one of the three horses to fall independently in the final obstacle and, in the butcher shop, two other horses were shot down.
O'Sullivan is shown within the weighing room during the Cheltenham Festival in 2023
Fatally, Wee Charlie's impulse meant that he threw O'Sullivan with the strength of his chair before overturning on him.
We know the clear and present danger of horse races, we see ambulances that seek the field after each race in each course around the world every day of the week, but you are never prepared for a result of this dark nature.
Michael O'Sullivan's story should not have ended. He controlled 95 winners in Ireland in total, the first of which came moving in Wilcosdiana, for his uncle Eugene in April 2018. The race, in Cork, is organized in Tyner's memory.
It is barely credible, the same tragic destiny should happen.