WE will also miss seeing Pat Smullen ride. We haven’t seen him ride for a while, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t miss seeing him in the saddle. He was the professional’s professional. You rarely saw him in the wrong place in a race.
He wasn’t one of those riders who loved to come from the back and drop a horse’s nose on the line, get up and win by a head.
He always rode for maximum efficiency. It was always about the horse, not the rider. Maximise your horse’s chance of winning.
And we remember the horses. Tarascon in the Moyglare Stud Stakes in 1997. That was the first Group 1. He was 20.
Vinnie Roe in the Irish St Leger in 2001. Vinnie Roe again in the Irish St Leger in 2002 and in 2003 and in 2004. Refuse To Bend in the 2000 Guineas.
Rite Of Passage, and that duel with Johnny Murtagh on Age Of Aquarius in the Ascot Gold Cup that lasted the length of Ascot’s home straight, two Irish horses and two Irish riders going toe to toe and clear of their field.
Harzand in the Derby.
We remember the ride that he gave Free Eagle to win the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2015, when he dictated a sedate pace from second place. And the ride that he gave Grey Swallow to win the Irish Derby in 2004, when he rode Dermot Weld’s horse for pace, untested beyond a mile, to quicken up and beat the Epsom Derby winner North Light.
CHAMPION JOCKEY
He was champion jockey in Ireland nine times. At the start of each season, we expected that Pat Smullen would be champion at the end of it.
He rode big winners in Ireland and in Britain and in France and in America and in Dubai.
His relationship with Dermot Weld endured, but he was also in demand abroad. He rode big winners for Sir Michael Stoute and William Muir and Hugo Palmer and Mick Channon and Roger Charlton.
Not only was he a top class rider though, he has also always been a top class person. He was always generous with his time when he was riding and, in the last 12 months, he has become an inspiration for many. Not just in Ireland, but internationally. The candour and the positivity with which he has fought his latest fight has been incredible. And he is winning. He is miles clear. We expected that too.