“What was interesting is that I remember as a child he would get nervous before playing in a big hurling match but when it came to a horse, that was different. That was always natural and he was very comfortable and cool about riding horses, whatever the occasion.”

Pat Lynch, The Irish Field, February 21st, 2015

HIS mother was there at every turn and like so many of us, he might not have realised the importance of that until she wasn’t.

Having shown innate horsemanship hunting with the Turkey Trotters, Derek O’Connor had a couple of spins in point-to-points but there was no hint of what was to come, as he came a cropper at the first fence on debut and only made it to the second next time around.

Jean picked him up, dusted him down and he remained undaunted, eager to learn.

So she approached friends in Newmarket-on-Fergus, Pat and John Lynch about giving him a job. They knew her from the old days.

“Jean was fearless and a top-class rider and a great worker so we knew the pedigree was black type,” said Pat Lynch in an article celebrating his former pupil’s 1,000th point-to-point triumph on board Death Duty for Pat Doyle at Cragmore four years ago.

O’Connor was just 17 when he notched up the first of those in 2000. Rossy Orchestra was owned by his brother Seán and trained by Lynch, and the pair claimed the seven-year-old and upwards mares’ maiden at Killaloe by a distance on bottomless ground.

“I’d have only had a handful of rides,” recalls O’Connor, less than a fortnight after bringing his tally to a stratospheric 1,200 winners between the flags at Dromahane on the Robert Tyner-trained Nelly’s Money.

“I was very novicey. I had no experience of show jumping or anything on the track. I was straight from the hunting field into racing so I was rough!”

A diamond in the rough. The Galwegian would go on to dominate, to reach the bar raised before him by John Thomas McNamara and Davy Russell, and propel it to unimagined heights. Establishing relationships at either end of the country from Tyner down south to Wilson Dennison up north and everywhere else in between, he was The Irish Field Leading Rider 11 times including a 10-in a-row, has the record for most point-to-point winners in a season (113) and set an aggregate mark easily comparable to A.P. McCoy’s record of 4,358 on the track, given he has had around a fifth of the opportunities.

In the meantime, he was also champion amateur on the track in 2004, thanks to a fruitful alliance with John Kiely in particular, has enjoyed multiple Cheltenham Festival triumphs and rode in the Gold Cup last March.

It is a mind-boggling dividend, particularly when you note the three broken legs and punctured lung, while suffering the ‘normal’ injuries such as dislocated shoulders and broken elbow that you can expect when hitting the deck 432 times out of 4694 rides between the flags alone to date.

Jamie Codd ended his long, unbroken run as king of the points in 2014. O’Connor wrestled the title back again the following season but Codd was champion next time around and since then, Barry O’Neill has taken up the mantle.

O’Connor hinted in conversation earlier this year that perhaps subconsciously, there was a short time when he took the foot off the pedal. It is clear that the rate of winners reduced. Now, he is back competing with O’Neill, Rob James and Codd for point-to-point honours and illustrating his sublime talents regularly under Rules.

Perhaps the track success, highlighted by the stupendous Grade 1 Irish Gold Cup success on miracle horse Edwulf that earned him the inaugural HRI Ride of the Year honour, has reinvigorated him?

“It’s hard to explain, Daragh. I don’t know to be honest,” comes the answer. So he thinks about it.

“When you get a nice group of horses to ride, and then to … you have to be very switched on because otherwise you’re not doing your job properly. It’s your duty to ride to the best of your ability and do the very best you can for an owner and trainer because a lot depends on what you do in the race and there’s a lot of money at stake, be it the value of the horse, the punter or the prize money that’s on offer. When you get good-calibre horses to ride, like I’m getting at the moment, you have to be switched on. Otherwise the trainers move on very fast and rightly so.”

You could never imagine him having done anything else once he was on a horse. But was he looking as hard? Could he see the finishing line to his career ahead? And then, did Edwulf, the growing association with Joseph O’Brien and J.P. McManus, and the crop of horses he is getting to ride now such as potential hunter chase superstar Stand Up And Fight, get the juices flowing once more?

“I dunno,” he says, laughing. “I dunno. It’s a tricky one to answer. I definitely did slow down and I definitely wasn’t as hungry but I think the loss of my mother was a big factor two years ago. She was a massive part of everything I done. She went point-to-point racing with me every day since I started. She never missed a day with 16 years and I think that just knocked the stuffing out of me for a season and I think that was the main reason, to be honest. I never really thought about it but it knocked the stuffing out of me for a season.

“Life moves on and it has to. I’ve a good family around me and I’ve no fears like that and things are going well again, thank God.”

Ever before meeting Pat O’Connor, a cattle dealer who passed away in 2005, she was Jean Moore, considered good enough by none other than Tom Costello to ride for him. She was part of a group that included Helen Bryce-Smith, mother of flat jockey Declan McDonogh, who shamed the Turf Club into allowing women ride on the track, the suits having resisted the weekly evidence on the point-to-point circuit for a long time in a bid to maintain what they viewed as the sanctity of the boys-only club.

Without Jean and her colleagues, there might not have been Maria Cullen, Caroline Hutchinson, Liz Lalor. No Katie Walsh. No Nina Carberry. No Rachael Blackmore.

O’Connor wasn’t aware of his mother’s ability and pioneering spirit, her actual legendary status, for a long time. That steel and determination to fight for equality was matched only by her focus on the Derek and his siblings Seán, Paurick and Loretta. It says a lot that they all live and work close by in the bucolic bliss of Tubber, on the Connacht side of the Galway-Clare border.

“She was a very quiet lady, very family-orientated. She used to get a great kick out of me winning races or Paurick winning races as a trainer. Her racing involvement was family-orientated as much as I ever knew.

“She was a very humble lady. She talked very little to be honest. It’s only in recent years, where you’d meet old friends, old jockeys, old comrades and they’d be telling you about the tough times lady riders back then, when they weren’t allowed to ride on the racecourse.

“There was a good bunch of lady riders then. Helen Bryce-Smith, Rosemary Rooney… my mother was of the same era. There were three or four ladies that broke the mould. They challenged the Turf Club. Tom Costello was a big pioneer in that too. He challenged the Turf Club with them to allow lady riders get a licence on the track and that’s what broke the mould. That was around 1965, 1966, that kind of era.

“It’s great when you get to this day and age – I know it was a long time ago – but when you’re looking at possibly having our first female champion jockey. Wouldn’t it be wonderful?”

***

THE miles travelled have been prodigious, figuratively and in actuality.

“When I was getting on the road John Thomas was huge and Davy was starting out. I actually shared a room with Davy for a winter below in Eugene O’Sullivan’s. I always remember, entries used be done on a Tuesday afternoon and Davy ringing to get all the low-down on the entries from Jim Hickey (secretary of the Cork and Waterford Point-To-Pont Association). He’d have them 12 or 14 hours before everyone else would.

“As soon as you’d get in from work at six o’clock, Davy would be on the phone until 10 or 11 o’clock, whenever people would stop answering him. He’d get numerous rides in every race at numerous meetings.

“On Friday or Saturday afternoon, we’d be in the room again and Davy decided what he wanted to ride. He’d ring them all back, pick and choose.”

He jokes that an attempt to ape the Russell system was not successful but manning the phones has been a key element of his success. Professional jockeys have agents to secure employment for them while they go about riding work and racing. That is not the case for the point-to-point riders.

“99% of the information we have is in our heads from working with trainers and going around schooling. There’s no form on paper for a lot of these horses. They’re not horses people could know about. So we couldn’t be depending on other people making decisions for us, we do it ourselves. You have to stand up on your own two feet as well and make your decision on what’s the best horse in the race, otherwise you might blame other people.”

The point-to-point circuit is unrecognisable from the beginning of the millennium that heralded the arrival of a nascent, god-like talent. The money involved in the acquisition of elite talent for and from the point-to-point nursery is eye-boggling and the 36-year-old’s expertise and contacts have been snapped up by Goffs UK to considerable effect. The growth of the upcoming Doncaster Sale is just another example.

“It’s dealing with horses in training, National Hunt horses and stores. Talk about a very suitable job. All I do is talk to the people I talk to regularly anyhow at the races. It’s very enjoyable. It’s general conversation with work colleagues and friends about horses they might offer for sale in Doncaster. The group is expanding all the time. As I slow down, in time, race-riding, I do hope to build on the job as agent and go into the flat a little bit as well.”

He gets a considerable kick out of seeing those he had a role in progressing going on to achieve on the track and that has just been accentuated by the sales gig.

“You might be after riding a horse in a four-year-old maiden. As an agent you get the owner to bring the horse for sale in Doncaster. Then you might have a little part to play in getting a customer that you recommend the horse to, and you gel the whole thing together. And then to see that horse going forward and being competitive on one of those Saturday meetings or festivals, that’s a great feeling.”

So, he has never been as busy. At times, he feels a twinge of guilt about that.

“There’s so much going on between the race riding, point-to-point and the track, the sales, horses at home, family life. Carol is my wife and we have three most beautiful girls, Jessica, Abbie and Annabel, all healthy and well and they love the horses and love being out and love being active. I’m so busy I probably don’t see enough of my family but I comfort myself that I’m working hard to provide for them.”

And the wheel, it keeps on turning.