JUST retired last Saturday after 50 years working with horses, the gifted and popular jockey and horseman Michael Furlong is back on the Wexford farm where he started life 67 years ago.

“I got my licence at 19 and rode as an amateur and professional. My grandfather was mad about pointing and my dad too loved the horses although he was occupied with working the farm.

“I’ve had a full-time career as a rider and don’t have a single regret. I was a National Hunt jockey so plenty of breakages, but they all mend! I feel grand.

“The highlights? Well in my second last year as an amateur, I was second to the great Ted Walsh in the jockeys’ championship.

Barney Curley

“And of course there was the Yellow Sam affair. I was chosen to do the job to pull off Barney Curley’s mighty gamble at Bellewstown in 1975.”

The betting coup returned some Ir£300,000 for Curley and connections (€1.7 million in today’s money) after a fantastically planned and executed betting coup came off.

Michael was an amateur at the time and had been booked for the ride well in advance by trainer Liam Brennan and knew nothing of the stunt.

Michael didn’t make his millions?

“Ah no, I was only riding the horse. He was a moderate enough horse but a proper trier, poor old thing. But it came off for Barney.”

Great judge

The best horse Michael rode was Bannow Rambler for Padge Berry, “a very good trainer and a great judge of a young horse”.

Michael and Bannow Rambler had won their previous three starts including the Thyestes Chase and the Leopardstown Chase before the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1977 in which Bannow Rambler started the 11/4 favourite but was brought down by faller Lanzarote, and though Michael remounted almost immediately, he was too far behind and tailed off. An unlucky loser.

“When Padge Berry was winding down I felt I was at the end of my career. I had met a lot of English people over the years through Padge and I thought I would go to England for a couple of years and stayed for 23!”

He settled in Sussex and rode mainly for local trainers.

“I got on very well with people. I’ve always loved horses, never been angry with them, never impatient and that helped me greatly in my career. For owners naturally their horse was the best in the yard and I appreciated that and they appreciated that I was looking after them.

“Jeff King now, he was a great jockey, not a great horseman. He couldn’t converse with owners, was very terse, just saying the horse was no effing good! I was the opposite.

“I never listened if a horse got a reputation and the other riders said, ‘you’re not riding that so and so’. I just went by the feel I got from sitting on the horse, made up my own mind.”

Plumpton saw Michael’s last ride as he broke his leg for the second time, this time in 13 different places! It was a last fence fall from Never A Penny on Easter Monday, April 1990.

“People were spilling out of the stands a big Easter crowd and the horse took his eye off the fence.”

Michael decided to stay where he was and opened a livery yard in Sussex, ponies, hunters, some pointers. “It was beautiful riding country around the Downs, you could ride for miles but it was hard work.

“After doing that for some time I was in my mid-50s and unlike a lot of people I had no family in the UK and I thought ‘what am I doing here?’

“So I came back to Ireland and have been working for Aidan O’Brien for the last 10 years. It’s a great place to be and it’s full of jump jockeys. I worked as an exercise rider and have had both hips replaced and Aidan eventually said to me, “now, Michael, there’s enough young lads riding around here”.

“There’s a wonderful set-up at Ballydoyle, the Giant’s Causeway yard has the most modern of facilities, individual lockers in each stall, makes working much easier! I’ve travelled with plenty of horses overseas and made some good friends like Jayo Kinane.”

Michael’s back to the farm where he started off life and happy to be there. “My father had a great work ethic and always wanted to do things right. He kept a couple of hunters which my older brother Pat and sister Caroline enjoyed as well. Instead of the GAA he’d always got to a point on a Sunday. It’s in the blood like my grandfather.

“I’m grateful for all the friendships and help over the years.”

A very happy and deserved retirement.