WHAT must it be like to bear witness to so much greatness from the best seat in the house? At close quarters, in your own home?

Pamela Carberry has had the privilege but is rather undemonstrative about it all. Not in a blasé manner, one hastens to add. But while there were Gold Cups and Grand Nationals go leoir, Cheltenham Festival successes aplenty and a multitude of champion trainer and jockey titles, terrible injuries, broken bones and bruised spirits were part of the deal too.

As Dan Moore’s daughter, Tommy Carberry’s wife, Arthur Moore’s sister and mother of Paul, Nina, Philip, Peterjon, Thomas and Mark – the latter the only one of the sextet not to become a jockey, but who having displayed an early entrepreneurial streak plucking turkeys and shining shoes in Ratoath, now runs a successful construction business in Australia, where Thomas is a trainer – there is little she hasn’t seen. It was just part of living.

Now at her home, midway between Ratoath and Ashbourne, watching as Nina tries to keep up with her daughter Rosie – the Carberry divilment, daredevil streak and judging by the video of her riding her pony, horsemanship live on – she is happy to take a trip down memory lane.

Racing achievements

It is almost two years since Tommy passed away (July 13th, 2017) and he is sorely missed, for he was a purveyor of happy times. The photos are everywhere. There is one beautiful snap of the family in a horse-drawn trap while on holidays in Kerry.Most of the shots depict the family business and pastime, for they are both one and the same. Shrines to bedazzling racing achievement.

Pamela (68) plucks memories from the mind’s archives.

Interestingly, she doesn’t automatically head for the obvious. L’Escargot’s Gold Cups and Grand National for husband and father, Bobbyjo’s Grand National for Tommy and Paul, Philip’s Champion Hurdle on Sublimity, Nina joining grandfather, father, uncle and brothers not just on the Cheltenham roll of honour but the Irish Grand National one, up the road at Fairyhouse.

She recalls people making a big deal of her father around Ratoath, and jockeys from all over the world coming to ride his horses. Raymond Guest was an owner before Dan moved his string to Ballysax to utilise the Curragh’s facilities. Pamela’s mother Joan, a daughter of a judge, was reared around horses too and would later take up the training duties when Dan died. After that, she was manager at Punchestown.

So horses were as normal to have around as people.

“I hunted but I went to school in England so for those years I wouldn’t have been riding constantly,” Carberry details. “I was about nine or 10 when I went to Shaftesbury in Dorset and was there until I was 17 or 18. There were a few other Irish girls. It was more for doing typing and going to operas. Probably, it just made you more mannerly.

“I remember a friend and I went up to Cheltenham. She was friendly with some jockey at the time. We came back and we were locked out. We had to get up through a window.”

She found out about most of her father’s successes via letters that arrived a week or two after the event. The most eminent ones, she read about in the paper.

Flying Wild was one of Dan’s favourites, a Cathcart winner two years before L’Escargot, who would also go on to have a stellar place in affections.

Of course Tommy did the navigation on all those occasions.

Then there was Tied Cottage, owned by Anthony Robinson, who would be in the plate for the 1979 Irish Grand National, with Tommy sidelined by injury.

“He was English and didn’t look like a rider at all. I can’t believe how he did what he did … Aintree was on before the Irish Grand National that year. Tommy had a bad fall and he broke his wrist and a collarbone so that was gone.

“‘Who are we going to get to ride the horse now?’ my mother says. I said, ‘Well why doesn’t Anthony ride?’, and my mother went bananas. And he rode it. And how he beat Tommy Carmody, the best jockey at the time? He wouldn’t have been a fit rider riding out every day. It was just unbelievable.”

Sadly, both Dan Moore and Anthony Robinson would have succumbed to ill health before the end of the following year.

Tommy’s injuries prepared Pamela for a lifetime of seeing her loved ones stricken in pursuit of their passion. Right now, Peterjon has been out of action since last October with a shoulder problem that stubbornly refuses to heal. Another operation may be on the agenda if he wants to return to the saddle.

Paul, who is now taking the show jumping world by storm, was forced into retirement by the latest in a long line of broken legs.

“I remember seeing the last break down in Listowel. I knew straight away it was gone. The horse kicked him. The doctor said, ‘You can’t break that again, I can’t fix it anymore.’”

Yet the biggest fright Pamela got was as a result of an incident just outside the door.

“We had the ponies over in the stables for the kids. We just had one barn at the time before Tommy was training … Thomas and Paul were out there messing and playing and jumping.

“Next thing Tom’s pony went under Paul’s pony’s head and knocked him off but he got caught up in the stirrup. He was about five days unconscious. He had to learn to walk and talk again.”

Mind you, Tommy pushed it close, at the same track that Paul would have his last ride.

“The worst fall he had was on the flat down in Listowel. Those days the back protectors were very flimsy. You could see a horse’s hoof print on him. Probably burst his lungs. They took him up on an ambulance. That ambulance had to pick up a woman who was having a baby. He was on life support for about two weeks.”

She reckons she might have been about seven when she clapped eyes on her future husband first, and even then, was smitten.

“I was up in the children’s room up in Fairyhouse. The head man knocked on the window and introduced me to Tommy. He had a suit on, looked very smart, gave me a box of chocolates and I melted straight away. He was with my father for a bit. Then he sent him down to his friend who trained on the flat, Jimmy Lenehan. He was top apprentice for two years.

“You didn’t really go out in that time. You went out in groups. It took me a bit by surprise. I was only 18 and he kept asking me to marry him. I didn’t know what to do. Then one day my mother and father were in the car and then he asked them. My mother was driving, she nearly ran into the ditch.”

They got married in 1970 and she travelled everywhere with him. They were heady days.

“I have a picture. It is after The Brockshee (won the Arkle in 1982, trained by Arthur and ridden by Tommy). The men are all lifting me up. We were in the Champagne Bar. All of the jockeys used to go to The Cellar after racing and have a few drinks together there. You wouldn’t even get in to have a drink now.”

Family combining for glory was a common them. In 2011, Nina became just the second female pilot to win the Irish Grand National, riding Organisedconfusion for Arthur, who had also bred the victor.

In the process, he was joining a select group of those who had ridden and trained winners of the race, which happened to include his father and brother-in-law.

“I couldn’t believe it was happening. We didn’t expect it. But in fairness to Ann Ferris, she had done it before.

“There is a fella here who helps me with all sorts of bits and pieces when things go wrong outside and inside here. He told me that my mother took an awful fall one day up at Fairyhouse point-to-points. I didn’t know that she point-to-pointed.”

The Carberry family who all have ridden the winner of the Irish Grand National - Paul (Left) (Bobbyjo), Nina (Organisedconfusion) and Philip (Point Barrow) \ Healy Racing

Tommy provided Nina with her early opportunities but there is no doubt his most famous victory as a trainer was combining with Paul to win Aintree’s Grand National, 24 years after he had steered L’Escargot to Ireland’s last triumph in the illustrious race.

The training enterprise had started slowly. Georgie Wells sent over a two-year-old owned by Bobby Burke and a vital connection was made. Later on, Burke had two horses that won 18 races between them for Tommy. And it was Burke that owned Bobbyjo.

“Before the Grand National, Nina and I brought the horse over in a box privately. It was a beautiful day. We were the first there. We had the place to ourselves. We walked the course and we rang Tommy and said the ground was good, which we wanted. Everything just fell into place.

“I don’t remember much about the race but I recall Bobby Burke and half of London... He got his people to back, back, back. They backed him down to favourite. I was up at Fairyhouse for lunch at the (Irish) Grand National and somebody who plays music there sat at the table. He worked in a bookies shop in London and said they had to close down after Bobbyjo!”

The Carberrys weren’t on though?

“I don’t know, Tommy might. My mother would have done it. She was a divil. She would have bet alright.”

Phenomenal career

Nina became the punters’ friend throughout her phenomenal career.

“The way it started off was the Geraghtys had a winner up in Down Royal. They went out that night. Barry was dropping back Thomas or Paul. Nina went out to say hello. Barry says, ‘Go in there and get your helmet and your things.’ They went down to the pony racing in Navan, they were organising it for Shane Broderick.

“Off she went. I had that much ironing to do, I stayed here. So anyway she won. That was the end of my ironing on a Sunday. We went everywhere. She was champion pony rider.”

Between them all, she must have felt tremendous pride.

“It was more of a nervousness, a bit more of a relief when races were over. You get keyed up a bit.”

For all the top-end achievements by them all, the one that comes to mind when asked to pick one would not be picked by anyone.

“Tommy and I drove down onto Laytown Beach. We went to pick up Mark who was an apprentice carpenter at the time. You could drive on the beach then. Paul rode three winners there that day. He was very young, probably only 16.”

Racing took them all over the world. It has given the kids phenomenal opportunities and Philip, who rode so successfully in France, is now running a training operation there with his wife Louisa. But even in Tommy’s riding days, Pamela travelled to the likes of America, where he won the Colonial Cup.

Shane Crawley is renting the facilities at the moment and Pamela is enjoying his success, especially Sassy Diva’s Dublin Racing Festival victory, which she says is deserved given the young Dubliner’s work ethic.

Nina, who is due her second child with husband Ted Walsh Jnr in August, is prepping her young horses here too and it is nice to have her and Rosie around so much.

Life has been an adventure. And with Carberrys all over the world, there are many more escapades to enjoy yet.

Bobbyjo after winning the 1998 Jameson Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse \ Healy Racing