FRANK Berry warmed up for a career that ended with him being crowned champion jump jockey 10 times, by winning the Irish St Leger on Giolla Mear in 1968, while still an apprentice.

He was always going to be a hard act to follow but with 978 winners in Ireland prior to racing yesterday, and another 100 or so internationally, his son, Fran has established his own reputation.

True to family form, Fran rode winners at the Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals before really making his name on the level. In an ultra-competitive era, he has been second in the race to be champion four times.

On three of those occasions, the deficit was in single figures - the closest being the five he was off Johnny Murtagh in 2008.

His best chance was three years earlier though but that campaign was brought to a shuddering halt at the end of August by a life-threatening injury suffered as a result of a fall from the ill-fated Indian Rite.

At the time, Berry was on 58 winners, and six clear of Pat Smullen. He lost by nine but it’s not something he dwells too much on because being the only person to walk out of the ward he was in at the Mater Hospital gives you context.

“When I got the fall, I was made walk to the ambulance… things have improved a lot since but I was so lucky,” recalls Berry ruefully.

“Adrian McGoldrick wasn’t in charge (as chief medical officer of the Turf Club) then and the care wasn’t up to scratch. I was very lucky permanent damage wasn’t done between getting the fall and getting to hospital that night.

“When I got to hospital, I was there two weeks in a ward with six people. I was the only one to walk out of the ward in the Mater.

“You’ve got a team of doctors coming in every morning and for the first couple of those they were feeling my toes and twitching them asking “Are you sure you can feel that?” That’s how close it was. They were worried.

“That gives you a very good perspective on life in general. I was only married a year at the time and I think I showed Laura all the highs and lows of a jockey’s career in that period.”

It was a matter of fractions. He had displaced the C6 vertebra (having also fractured his C2) but is fortunate to have a wide spinal column, so the displaced vertebra didn’t touch the spinal cord, even when he lifted his arms over his head to take his silks off in the ambulance. Miraculous.

Keith Synnott told him that surgery he was recommending would get him back in the saddle and it did.

Not for the last time, Jessica Harrington helped him get back on his feet figuratively, and the relationship with Jumbajakiba, who won three group 3s that season, was particularly fruitful.

All the hard work appeared to pay off when Berry became first jockey to John Oxx in 2010 after Michael Kinane’s retirement. It lasted one season though and when Murtagh became available after leaving Ballydoyle, he was out of a job.

“It came as a bit of a bolt from the blue. We didn’t have a bad year. I had my best year ever, 88 winners and just beaten (by eight) in the jockeys’ championship.

“I knew when Johnny became available he was going to be floating around somewhere for a job but I just felt that my first year in the job, things had gone well despite not having a high profile horse to ride all year. You’d just ridden your first Group 1 winner (Pathfork for Harrington).

“It was unexpected but looking back now it was probably inevitable. You just go from having a very solid base with 80 or 90 horses to ride, to nearly zero and having to start again.”

But again, he thought about the millimetres that might have changed his life forever and moved on. He was helped in that process by being offered a job in Japan on the back of winning on Pop Rock in Galway.

Oxx hadn’t been keen for him to go, feeling he would be better served resting in the off-season, but now there were no barriers.

It is a regular haunt since. He has accumulated 40 winners, including four group contests in the past two years, while also being placed in a couple of group 1s. It will be tough to leave Laura and 10-week-old son Jordan, and he’d hate to lose out on finishing third in the jockeys’ table, but when you see Ryan Moore making the same journey despite being locked in a battle with Richard Hughes to be English champion, you get an idea of the lucrative opportunities. And it’s about making contacts too.

“They’re becoming very international orientated, particularly with the better horses. I’ve ridden a couple of group winners for the trainer (Yasutoshi Ikee) of Orfevre, who was second in the Arc twice. Him and the trainer I ride for, Noriyuki Hori, I have them almost persuaded to try send a horse to the Irish Leger or Irish Champion Stakes at some stage.

“That’s a big factor in going out there as well. I think if they do travel I might pick up the ride. But they’re definitely thinking that way.”

He gives the three Japanese runners in tomorrow’s Arc a big chance, with a slight preference going to Gold Ship over Harp Star to make the boldest bid, as long as it is a truly-run contest.

The 33-year-old will be at Longchamp himself, via Newmarket today, where he rides Minalisa in listed fillies’ contest. Having won a similar contest on the five-year-old in Naas, the Kilcullen man was retained by Rae Guest when she finished second in the Ayr Gold Cup. The trainer is obviously taken with Berry’s talents and the pair have a big chance today.

Jack Naylor in the Prix Marcel Boussac is the most exciting prospect though. Harrington has handled Jack Naylor expertly and it would be fitting if the Champs Elysees filly could confirm her classic credentials in Paris.

Certainly, it is no surprise to hear Berry say: “I’m glad to be on her.” She beat subsequent May Hill victor, Agnes Stewart in the Silver Flash Stakes and followed up by winning a listed contest despite carrying a 5lb penalty.

Qualify and Together Forever finished third in those races and have gone on to win since. The form stacks up and while she has performed on all surfaces, the projected good ground will be ideal.

“She’s just improved. For a filly that got beaten in her first couple of runs in Leopardstown and Fairyhouse… she probably should have won at Leopardstown, she missed the start very badly. To win in Roscommon with 8st 8lb in an auction race, you’d think ‘That’s job done, she’s got her bracket and go for a nursery.’

“But Jessie was adamant. She doesn’t kill herself at home so it’s hard to know how good she was or is. Jessie was keen to pitch her into the Group 3 in Leopardstown and it worked out better than we could have expected. She won very well and the form has worked out extremely well.

“Then to go to the Curragh over a mile, back in listed company albeit, but giving a 5lb penalty and weight away to all the other horses, it was a great performance to win and she’s well entitled to go to France after that.”

The trainers he is riding for this weekend and next week, when he leaves for Japan, is a testament to Berry’s hunger, industry and character. It is, of course, a team effort and agent Ciaran O’Toole is a key player.

This season has provided due reward. Only Pat Smullen and Chris Hayes have had more rides. The increasing investment of J.P. McManus in flat racing has been helpful in this regard too.

Berry senior is McManus’ racing manager, so it was an obvious link-up, but you have to get the results and they have. Alive Alive Oh was disappointing but the two-year-olds with David Wachman are promising, with Fit For The Job just one to watch.

Included in the season’s highlights is winning the Ascot Stakes at Royal Ascot for the third time, and second year in a row, having booted in the McManus-owned Well Sharp 12 months previously.

He had been trying to persuade Charles Byrnes to run Domination in it for the past two years and ironically, would not have been able to take the ride because of Well Sharp’s presence had he listened initially. Fortunately, Byrnes followed through this year and was rewarded.

Most recently, Berry had a winner during the Irish Champions Weekend and Toe The Line gave him a real kick when following that up to give John Kiely his first listed flat winner - from his first runner - in The Irish Field Loughbrown Stakes at the Curragh last Sunday.

He has joked with Kiely that he should get his top hat ready but does believe that an early pop at the Vintage Crop or Saval Beg is in order, with a view to shedding more light on the possibility of ending up in a Gold Cup. Certainly, an intended jumping career has been delayed.

“It’s just kicked off from Day One. Came home from Japan, got a winner in the winter season. Iveagh Gardens won the first day of the season at the Curragh and that kind of got the ball rolling. It’s just gone better and better as the year has gone on. Things have improved and quality-wise it’s been great.

“Every second week there seemed to be a nice ride or nice winner coming up which builds your season as you go. (Kool Kompany in the Railway Stakes)

“In Ireland there’s probably only three or four jobs that requires a full-time stable jockey. I’ve a great core of trainers I work for - some mornings I could ride work for six different trainers. And they’re all very understanding too if you want to ride a different horse in a race - the fact you’ve done the morning work and built a relationship with horse and trainer, usually you can smooth things over and try keep everybody happy.

“It’s not easy sometimes but thankfully it worked out well this year anyway.”

And he’s not done yet.