YOU know about Galaxy Rock’s fall in the Kim Muir Challenge Cup at Cheltenham on March 14th, 2013 - the kick from a following horse that shattered John Thomas McNamara’s helmet and changed his life forever.

Earlier that month, McNamara suffered significant shoulder damage after a tumble in Askeaton so he was taken to Limerick hospital to have the shoulder popped back into its socket. This is a brutally painful process as ligaments, tendons and bone squeeze, stretch and twist. Yet he was back in the saddle the next day working the horses in his yard.

This is a man that doesn’t go down easy. So it’s no surprise to see him figuratively standing tall even if that will never happen in a literal sense.

Jump jockeys are a breed apart. They possess traits that are absolutely essential to catapulting horses over fences regularly. When you are one of the best amateur pilots racing has ever seen, you have these attributes in spades, attributes, it turns out, that are just as helpful when suddenly, you are paralysed from the neck down.

Caroline McNamara: “I think the absence of a fear factor definitely.” She looks at her husband. “You go in that chair… I think actually that’s where you don’t… what am I trying to say?”

John: “More shite. Go on.”

Caroline: “There are people that would take their time about trying something and would start at it slowly… and gradually get the pace up. John just goes at it full belt. If there was a type of a jump or hurdle that the chair could go over, he would go over it. Am I right John?”

J.T.: “Sure they can’t do too much more damage to me.”

Matter-of-fact analysis of the situation, acceptance and refusal to dwell on the past are other vital tools. The little touch of madness and the ability to laugh. Cutting through to the reality of a situation.

JOY AND FUN

You can get consumed by the injuries, the sadness, the near death, the sacrifices, the loss of independence, the invasion of privacy. But you have to look beyond the chair. You have to look beyond the tube in the man’s throat and the whirring of the ventilator.

Look at the face and the life in those mischievous eyes. Hear the clarity of thought, the quick wittedness. John Thomas McNamara doesn’t ride horses anymore but that wasn’t all of him. This is just another phase of his life. His knowledge, experience and expertise are all still there. So is the joy and the fun.

He turned 40 on April 8th and make no mistake, it was a celebration. It has been difficult in the past two years and it is still difficult. But this is the new normal. What are you going to do? Wallow in self-pity? Not if you’re John Thomas and Caroline McNamara.

They know the realities but are comforted beyond measure by the human reaction, the kindnesses. How people rallied around to raise €800,000 for the Jockeys’ Emergency Fund on behalf of J.T. and Jonjo Bright at Limerick Racecourse the October after the accident will never be forgotten.

J.P. AND NOREEN MCMANUS

Then there are the visits that continue to this day. J.P. and Noreen McManus, Jonjo and Jacqui O’Neill, A.P. McCoy, Michael Hourigan, Gordon Elliott, Dr Adrian McGoldrick, Liam and Pat Healy, Mikey Joe Cregan, Danny O’Connell - too many to mention but all welcome and held dear.

“A.P. was very good to me in England. You could see him morning, noon or night. He could appear at any time. He’s great craic. He called in Dublin too.”

McGoldrick with the “heart of gold”, whose role as Turf Club medical officer is “not just a job”. He would visit just to help kill the time, bringing The Irish Field with him so J.T. could catch up on all the point-to-point news especially.

McNamara and Elliott go back a long way. “The year I was champion novice rider, it was Gordon that was challenging. For a long time we were neck-and-neck, winner-for-winner. Then I went to Ballysteen - I think it was the first year pointing there - and I rode four winners. That was it then.”

Again, people were so moved that they called in, even if they didn’t’ know him.

“There was a lady used to go into see you in Southport,” recounts Caroline. “Eithne. She used to call in every now and then with dinner or a tin of biscuits. Her father was in the hospital and she’d call in after seeing him.”

J.T.: “It’s unbelievable the amount of people that came to see me. Unbelievable. Jockeys, trainers, owners. Everyone.”

………………

HOME

The greatest cause for celebration of all when he had his birthday was the fact that he was home. In the bosom of those he loved and who loved him. Not independent but with a form of it, especially once the chair was fixed and he could start going to work without having to be pushed around everywhere.

He had set up the yard while still riding, planning for retirement. It was going well when the world caved in but Caroline, Kari Mohan, Brian Lenihan and Aidan O’Leary kept the show on the road for when he returned.

J.T.: “I’d be so bored otherwise. You need something to get up and go to. It would be a very long day otherwise, sitting at home.”

BEST HORSEMAN

This is a guy described by Davy Russell as the best horseman of all the jockeys he had ever ridden against. He was champion point-to-point rider five times before Derek O’Connor began his domination but continued to lord the western area, bringing his number of titles in the region to 10 when annexing a fifth in a row in 2008.

The following season, he qualified for senior status and farmed that category every year, including in 2013, when his career ended on Cheltenham turf. In all, he rode 602 winners between the flags. Only Derek O’Connor and Jamie Codd, who he admires for changing the face of point-to-point riding, have surpassed him.

Carlingford Lough is just one example of his prowess in preparing future stars.

J.T.: “I had him as a young horse, pre-training. He was a lovely horse back then. I’d say there would be plenty more races in him. He’ll miss A.P.”

On The Fringe is another who has the McNamara stamp on him, with J.T. having won a couple of hunter chases on him for Enda Bolger. He told the trainer that he had a really good horse on his hands. He told everyone else while he was at it.

J.T.: “He always let me down the f***er. But this year he seems a lot better altogether. He won with his head in his chest in Cheltenham. I knew he’d win in Liverpool, I’d been saying it for a while. I knew it would suit him.

“They rang me when he won in both places. They were just going into the parade ring. It was nice that they were thinking of me.”

J.T.: “I was glad to see her winning on him more than anyone else.”

HORSES

There is no sadness here. This is peace. McNamara has lost so much but has a lot more than when he was lying in a bed staring at the ceiling. He has more than when his chair could only go forward. Now he sees the good and the bad in the horses, works out how to fix them, make them jump, settle or lie upsides if they’re not straightforward. He revels in the puzzle, working that brain, using his genius.

Caroline: “People can treat you as somebody who’s sick rather than treat you as someone who’s in a chair and can go out there and do something. It might be a different way of doing it but you can do it. It’s a different quality of life. It mightn’t be the quality of life you want or wanted. But this is what it is and you have to make the most of it.”

CHARACTER

You don’t always have a choice about what happens to you in life but you always have a choice about how you deal with it. It is a blessing to be focusing on John Thomas McNamara’s face because of how he and Caroline have dealt with their grievous misfortune and the hurdles they have encountered in the past couple of years. You see the character. You see life.

He is really looking forward to Limerick today, where a charity race is being run fundraising for Irish Injured Jockeys. Sheikh Fahad Al Thani is taking part along with Johnny Murtagh, Kevin Darley, Kevin O’Ryan, Peter Molony and many others.

It is important to the McNamaras that they support the event but what really has J.T. buzzing is the impending trip to Punchestown. It is no surprise, given the stamp he left on the festival, what he is looking forward to most.

“I’ve no interest in the Grade 1s although there’ll be some great horses. I’ll be there for the banks races, the La Touche and the Ladies Cup.”

Is there a knack to riding the banks?

“Have a good trainer behind you. I was mad for it. I loved it. I used to do a load of hunter trials. My favourite day was Bolger’s 10th La Touche on Spot (Spot Thedifference). He was an unbelievable horse. You’d never beat him if he was there at the bottom of the hill. Whatever it was, he changed gears and flew.”

Watching Carlingford Lough and On The Fringe compete will be a thrill too. He loves horses and that is why there is no regret or recrimination about what happened him and how. No one is to blame.

J.T.: “I’d be a lot worse if it happened to me in a car crash.”

Caroline: “You wouldn’t accept it I think.”

J.T.: “No. No way. I loved doing the racing and ’twas always a risk.

Caroline: “I think sporting people, who are so competitive, that’s why they are competitive. They can get their head outside of that picture. You wouldn’t do it. Us normal people that don’t have that streak wouldn’t be able to necessarily go out there every day knowing what might happen.”

So he is going to live life as hard and fast as he can. What tomorrow brings, let it bring.