THE racing world continues to mourn the loss of one of its brightest lights, after Michael O’Sullivan succumbed to the injuries that he sustained in a final fence fall at Thurles on February 6th.

It is a measure of his impact on the racing world, and the number of lives that he touched through his near 25 years, that his passing has been so profoundly felt, not least within the point-to-point community.

For this may be a sport, it may be an industry, but it is a community first and foremost, and one which the O’Sullivan family are at the heart of. When Michael was born on February 21st 2000, it was almost inevitable that he would find his way into the saddle, as nine years earlier his father William had galvanised Lovely Citizen to get up in the dying strides and claim the 1991 Christies Foxhunters at the Cheltenham Festival.

Trained by William’s brother Eugene, owned and bred by their father Eoin, they had won the blue-ribbon race within the amateur realm, an accomplishment that only two other Irish connections managed to achieve in the preceding 45 years.

Charting his own path

It is impossible to overstate the enormity of the achievement, and they returned home to the Cork and Waterford point-to-point circuit as heroes. Flash forward almost 26 years to the day of that great Foxhunters victory, and Michael began his own journey to what would ultimately be Cheltenham glory of his own via that very same point-to-point circuit, when finishing third aboard Eugene’s Milano Citizen in a novice rider’s adjacent maiden at Dromahane.

A first success followed five months later, as with cousin Maxine away at the sales in Newmarket, 17-year-old Michael assumed the stable’s number one role for the day at Castletown-Geoghegan on the opening day of the 2017/18 season.

Having ridden in his first four-year-old maiden at the start of the card, four races later he went on to gain his breakthrough initial victory by defeating the Jamie Codd-ridden Samanntom to claim the open aboard A Decent Excuse, sporting the royal blue and yellow quartered silks, synonymous with O’Sullivan family runners in the pointing fields.

Ambition and style

Even by this early juncture, many shrewd judges had already begun to spot the polished style of his in the saddle, a style that we have heard of him spending countless hours perfecting and refining. But at this stage, the evidence of a young man with an ambition that reached outside of the confines of his home turf was also present.

Later in this first full season, he made the nine-hour round trip from his home in Lombardstown to Tyrella for just one ride in an older maiden for Brian Hamilton. It is perhaps no surprise that we now hear of his forays to France in recent years to build his association with Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm. This was a young man determined to reach his potential.

His endeavours were rewarded, as the following season he followed in the footsteps of names like Adrian Maguire, John Thomas McNamara, Timmy Murphy, Davy Russell, and Derek O’Connor, when he was crowned champion under-21 rider.

The title-winning campaign was all the more notable given that the first of his 16 victories, a tally only bettered in the preceding decade by fellow under-21 champions Barry O’Neill and Rob James, only got rolling on the opening day of the spring term, when Gerry Kelleher’s Macs Legend won an open at Dromahane on December 30th, 2018.

The fact that his first ever ride for Kelleher’s Macroom stable was a winning one, kickstarted a successful partnership between the pair that season which would see them win six races together, three each aboard Maifitz’s Madonna and the stable’s bargain-buy Macs Legend, victories that were supplemented by further successes for his uncle Eugene, Paul Cashman, Michael Kennedy, Jimmy Mangan, Robert Tyner and Colin Bowe.

In the blood

By the season-ending awards in the Hotel Minella, Michael and his cousin Maxine, who had won her third ladies’ title, posed for photographs, trophies in hand, on either side of their chief supporter, granny Mary, flanked by Michael’s parents William and Bernie, his brother Alan, and uncle Eugene.

Family has been at the heart of so much of their successes within the pointing sphere. The following year, Michael and Alan were among the first to greet Maxine after she had guided the 66/1 shot It Came To Pass to a 10-length success in the Cheltenham Foxhunters, the brothers running to meet their cousin in the pull-up area at the top of the most famous hill in racing.

As Alan took a hold of the horse’s head to lead him in front of the packed stands of Gold Cup Friday, Michael had to rest his right hand for support on the number 12 number cloth that adorned the horse’s abdomen, nursing a limp having fallen the previous Sunday.

The desire to have that winning moment of his own on the hollowed turf of Prestbury Park burned ever greater following that Festival, and unlike so many others, he was able to make that dream a reality.

Three years later, he cooly shrugged off the weight of expectation that came with riding a leading Supreme hope, when he guided Marine Nationale to land the opening race of the 2023 Festival.

He may have departed the point-to-point scene by this stage, but the victory still remained a source of immense pride to those from the pointing sphere, who had watched him mature and develop as a rider at fixtures right across the country.

Following his untimely passing, the warmth that has flowed from within the point-to-point community, with heartfelt tributes from those who had followed the formative years of his career, is a lasting legacy of the young man that he was and will continue to be remembered as.

Rest in peace, Michael.