THE 12-year-old daredevil gave his brother the nod. They had been waiting for the opportunity and here it was. An open ploughed field was like the keys to the kingdom.
Their father was a jockey, one of the best. So they wanted to race. All the time.
Paul looked at Thomas and no words were needed. A kick of the heels and a tap of the riding crops and their ponies were on their way, knifing through the wind, urged on by the Carberry boys to a glory that had no name other than the absolute immediacy of an adrenaline rush, then the accompanying laughter at the craic.
Such behaviour didn’t go down well with one participating adult though as Paul recalls now chuckling, 29-years later.
“I’d say the first time he saw me was in the hunting field. He actually rang my father up that night to give out about Thomas and myself galloping across a ploughed field. So that was his first introduction to me. He rang up and squealed on me that night.”
Little did Noel Meade know what lay in the future between himself and the adult Carberry. Highs and lows. Boss and employee first, developing to an unbreakable bond that have seen them stand by each other through thick and thin.
that was his first introduction to me. He rang up and squealed on me that night.”
Carberry knows that he has tested the trainer’s patience on more than one occasion but is thankful for the support and amity.
“We have a great friendship. It’s the last 20 years and more I suppose. He’s been absolutely great to me. The two of us understand each other. He knows that I’m not going to kill a horse if it’s not going to win and he knows that I’m out to do my best so he lets me at it. Anytime he does give me instructions he usually gets me beat anyway!”
NOEL MEADE
The one-liner is never far away with Carberry. But he can be serious too. He is never more so than when on horseback.
He recalls too the struggles at Tu Va when infected water put Meade’s horses under a cloud. It affected both their fortunes. Carberry did provide a rare ray of light when guiding Very Wood to victory in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham last March. He was in the plate too when Ned Buntline was just touched off in the Grand Annual.
But they were exceptions rather than the rule. For six months, the yard suffered until Road To Riches bolted up in the Galway Plate. Since then, it’s been back to business. Meade is third in the trainers’ table with more than €1m in prize money accumulated and a strike-rate that is comparable with the best of his National Hunt peers apart from Willie Mullins and Aidan O’Brien. With 33 winners, Carberry has already bettered his tally from last term.
“It was very tough alright. You need good horses and luckily enough the horses were there. If it didn’t come it’s easy enough to go underground. Like, when I get a fall and get broke up, you get forgotten about quickly enough. It’s the same for a trainer.”
The joviality is only just around the corner though. And certainly, Meade gets no sympathy when he enquires at this time of year if the hunting is over soon.
“No,” is the only reply forthcoming.
Even with the catalogue of injuries he has built up over the years, the twice a week routine of jumping drains, dykes, gates and stone walls will continue right up to jump racing’s most important week. And Meade knows that. Carberry often made the trip home to join his Ward Union colleagues in midweek to alleviate the boredom when he was based in England from 1996 to 1998, as retained rider to Robert Ogden.
The adventurous, happy-go-lucky, smiling kid hasn’t changed much. Perhaps the roughest edges have been smoothed but a simple approach to life frees him from stress, pressure or too many regrets.
If he falls in a field and picks up an injury that sidelines him, it wouldn’t be the first time and it won’t be the last. If he misses Cheltenham, so be it. He won’t be worrying.
“No point. I’m too long at it. I’ve been out too many times to be wondering about it now. There’s no bubble wrap left in this house.”
TERRIBLE INJURIES
For normal men, it would be deemed madness but for this one, it’s a life philosophy. Remember, this is a body with no spleen after an injury that nearly killed him on the gallops in 1999, just a few weeks after winning the Grand National.
The initial diagnosis was fractured ribs but a couple of days later, he woke up and knew he was in serious trouble. The doctors told him later that if the ambulance had arrived to take him to the hospital 15 minutes later than it did, he would probably have died.
Subsequently, he has suffered a punctured lung, lacerated liver, broken legs and the usual sundries such as collarbones, ribs and shoulders. He was just back in time from a fractured rib to take the mount on Apache Stronghold in the Flogas-sponsored novice chase that was formerly the PJ Moriarty at Leopardstown last Sunday week. He turned 41 the day after and with the type of timing that has made him famous, galvanised his partner to a thrilling victory over Valseur Lido.
His former Coolcullen mucker, A.P. McCoy had stolen the headlines by announcing his retirement and would do so again a little later on when winning the Hennessy on Carlingford Lough, but the knowledgeable racing people were taking the opportunity to purr.
It wasn’t the head-down-bum-up exhibition he is often associated with and which is so aesthetically pleasing. What we got was horsemanship in the purest sense. The ultimate stylist displaying very real substance for the umpteenth time; a gifted individual at one with his steed, listening to what the horse was telling him. Absolutely instinctive; it was equine magic.
“He put the head down and went. He galloped to the line, which he didn’t really do the time before (at Christmas) and he jumped a lot more beautifully (that time). It just wasn’t happening the other day but still at the end of the race, he was able to put his head down and gallop.
“I was going to drop him anyway but I thought his jumping would get me to the front down the back at some stage. I’d use his jumping and if we got there I’d keep staying on, I wouldn’t pull him back. Because I thought I was taking him back the time before and was giving away lengths when he shouldn’t be. But it wasn’t working out so you just had to sit and suffer.
“I said it to Noel and the owner I was going to let him tell me when it was time to go and he’d do the talking. So that’s what I did, I just had to wait for him.”
HORSE’S COMFORT ZONE
He has always preferred intuition over tactics.
“Every horse has their own comfortable speed, their own comfort zone. If you take them out of that you’re at nothing. You have to find that comfort zone and keep them at that. Then you’re gonna improve the horse throughout the race, you’ll get the best out of him. If you take the horse out of his comfort zone early he’s not going to get home. It’s pretty simple when you think about it.”
Carberry is delighted that McCoy is going out on his own terms and recalls the times they shared with the master jockey trainer, Jim Bolger at Coolcullen.
“He’s unique. The two of us grew up together in Bolger’s. Even then he showed great style - great everything. You could see he was very good. The determination he has is unreal. He gets slapped off the ground and he just wants to get up and ride the next day, no matter where it is.
“It’s the one thing I hate doing is I hate riding when I’m sore ’cos you just know if you fall you’re going to land on it but it doesn’t seem to bother him too much.”
He is a year older than McCoy but has no thoughts of calling it quits. For a start, he hasn’t decided what he would do. He has a yard and a gallop but isn’t enamoured with the prospect of training. Buying and selling might be the way to go but you need money to start with. Anyway, as he said recently, when he was asked as a child what he wanted to be when he grew up, “a jockey” was always the answer.
“And I’m still growing up so I still want to be a jockey.”
Apart from that, he still has goals and feels that there are good horses available to him that might help him realise them.
“Any winner is a bonus but the big ones are the special ones. The first big race I won at Cheltenham was the World Hurdle a couple of years ago. I’d won a good few races there but that was one of the first big ones I won. I’d like to win another one of them, a Gold Cup or a Champion Hurdle.”
In all he has 14 at the festival, two shy of his father, Tommy.
Apache Stronghold might be the one to bring him closer. He might allow him mirror the old man’s Gold Cup achievement too, though Tommy won it twice on L’Escargot. Apache Stronghold has potential and is a live contender for the JLT but with the expected improvement, might go all the way.
Monksland would have a chance in the World Hurdle but given a medical history that mirrors Carberry’s, it is never a given that he will make it to Prestbury Park in one piece.
As things stand, he will have to watch Bryan Cooper get the leg up on Road To Riches and he thinks the Gigginstown House gelding is the one to be on in the blue riband.
“He’s a great chance. He’s progressing, he’s in good form and he’s best going left. He ticks all the right boxes. You could see him pricking his ears after the last (in the Lexus) so you knew he was gonna keep going. Stamina shouldn’t be a problem.”
There will be a couple more rides and he invariably picks up some spares from English-based trainers who cannot believe their luck he is available. He is looking forward to it now.
“It’s the atmosphere when all the Irish are over. The reception you get when you come in and everything.”
There’s a pause. Almost theatrical.
“Not so much when you come in when you were second in a Champion Hurdle though.” Guffaw.
“And people roaring at ya.” Another guffaw.
src="http://www.theirishfield.ie/WEBFILES/154718-175180.jpg" style="max-width:100%;" />
Harchibald is ready to pounce over the last at Cheltenham, but Hardy Eustace proved too strong
He is talking about one of his most infamous rides, when he waited until the dying strides to ask Harchibald for an effort in the 2005 Champion Hurdle, after galloping all over Hardy Eustace. When he didn’t get past, the punters turned on him. As he brought it up, you wonder if he still thinks about it.
“No I don’t,” he says dismissively, the tone telling you that he can’t see the sense in such a waste of time and energy. “You can’t turn back the clock. He got beat by a better horse on the day and you can’t change that.”
Nor does he get angry that some people don’t understand that different horses need to be ridden in different ways and that Hardy Eustace was actually pulling away at the end. He could not kick on.
“He would have been third if I’d done that.”
As he said in a subsequent interview, “the operation went well but the patient died”. He did everything right and it still wasn’t enough.
HARCHIBALD
Harchibald is the best horse he has ridden he reckons, with the ill-fated Go Native a close second. Looks Like Trouble, Doran’s Pride, Florida Pearl, Harbour Pilot, Beef Or Salmon, Solwhit, Limestone Lad and Solerina are just some of the other classy ones he has been successful on.
Bobbyjo has a special place in his heart of course. That family triumph in Aintree 16 years ago remains vivid in the memory. Ultimately, it was a lifelong dream realised and made all the special for the fact that his father trained him. Nina led them in.
Anyway, he hopes to squeeze another winner out of Cheltenham before he’s done. The first came in the Champion Bumper on Rhythm Section in 1993. He was a prodigious 5lb claimer beating the hot favourite, Heist - trained by Noel Meade. He finished that season champion apprentice in Ireland, setting a total of 54 (divided evenly between flat and NH) that stood until Joseph O’Brien hit 57 in 2011.
He didn’t feel pressure then and swears he doesn’t now. He didn’t when Go Native was going for the million euro bonus in 2010.
“It either happens or it doesn’t.”
He expands on that slightly.
“I tend not to think about things. If you start to think about things you muddle things up so just go out and ride.”
So, on he goes. There is no yoga or pilates to keep the body supple. Just riding horses. The injuries haven’t left too much of a mark.
“I’m not too bad now, touch wood. My shoulder was giving me a lot of hassle until I got the operation on it. The ribs were sore for a while but they seem to be alright now. It’s just a day-to-day thing. You’re usually sore somewhere so it’s great when you’re not.”
Looking on the bright side of life. No shock there.