THE Turf Club gets a grilling on occasions but they sure got it right when it came to sourcing the individual to carry on the good work of Walter Halley as senior medical officer.

Adrian McGoldrick has done everything asked of him but what sets him apart is what he has done beyond the basic remit. The personal, behind the scenes gestures and visits that few will ever know about; ask Shane Broderick, John Thomas McNamara or Robbie McNamara about him.

It stems from an empathy with jockeys, a group he describes as “gorgeous” people. The admiration, and dare we say it love, is reciprocated and it would be difficult to find a more popular individual in the weigh-room.

McGoldrick’s humanity, allied with an innate desire to push back the boundaries and do better, to be a scientist as well as a general practitioner, to learn and educate, is the main factor in Ireland’s place at the vanguard of health and safety developments in racing.

He is the first to namecheck others, at home and abroad, as well as the support of the Turf Club and Horse Racing Ireland.

But McGoldrick is the nonpareil for Irish riders. They will miss him when he reaches the Turf Club’s retirement age of 65 in three years but will continue to bat on their behalves; researching, studying, rallying and lobbying for improved standards.

Reasonable and acceptable aren’t sufficient in any walk of life, not to mind health and safety. For The Doc, as the jockeys know him, only the best will do.

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A native of Rathangan, McGoldrick used to cycle the 10 miles to the Curragh with his older brothers to watch the Irish Derby. So he was always likely to be drawn to racing when he qualified in 1976 and returned to Newbridge in 1984 after a five-year stint in Clones.

He succeeded Paddy Canty as the local GP and fittingly, as racecourse doctor at the destination for those childhood treks.

Racing combined his twin passions of occupational and sports medicine.

It was a natural fit, especially in Newbridge, where he had a lot of trainers, stable staff and jockeys visit his practice. Almost immediately, he asked 11 of the jockeys that were his patients if they would participate in a study he wanted to carry out on dehydration in jockeys.

“The late Ned Gowing (founder of Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital) allowed us to convert his laboratory to take human blood. We took blood before racing and immediately after racing and brought it down to the laboratory and analysed it, to confirm that they were seriously dehydrated during racing.”

CONSEQUENCES

The thirst for knowledge to facilitate informing the protagonists and establish improved procedures has continued ever since. Since 2004 he has been involved in research on the consequences of jockeys making weight alongside Dr Giles Warrington, the senior lecturer in sport and exercise physiology at University of Limerick.

The Turf Club has funded two research fellows in that period, as well as the masters in dietetics achieved by Gillian O’Loughlin. McGoldrick has upped the ante significantly since taking on the role on January 1st, 2008. Because in this sphere, there can be no glass window.

Sarah Jane Cullen, who is now a lecturer in Waterford and was a member of the sports science and medical team with Ireland’s Olympic team at London, was one of the Turf Club-funded fellows and she is currently working with O’Loughlin in terms of helping apprentices to get their licences, and older jockeys to make weight safely. The emphasis is on exercise and nutrition.

“We brought in the new minimum riding weights over the last four years. Part of the new strategy is that they must meet with Gillian, our dietitian, on two occasions and with a sports physician. With that, we now do see jockeys spending more time looking at nutrition and exercise to make weight rather than the old techniques, like the sauna, the flipping…”

You are ready to fire off a question because you know seeing at first hand, the emesis bowls at American racetracks for jockeys to vomit into, horrified him.

He is passionate about the inherent dangers for jockeys attempting to make weight in a society where the population is getting heavier. You don’t get it in, because without pause, he has followed the road map.

“Now flipping… I see that it’s an issue in England but to my knowledge, I wouldn’t be aware of it being a problem here. It could be and I’m sure it is but certainly not to the degree it is in England.

minimum weight

“The Irish stewards and HRI have worked on the minimum weight over the last year and got it up to 8st 4lbs in the flat; we got our medium weights up to the very maximum we can get them in Europe. Weight structures can’t move any further in Ireland until we get France and England onside to increase weights.

“I think even England and France acknowledge that we’re drawing our jockeys from the lowest point-five percent of the human population (in terms of weight). Jockeys are just getting bigger. Certainly Ireland has been to the forefront, purely thanks to the stewards of the flat committee and Jason Morris, the director of racing at HRI.”

He returns to the topic later: “Even with all the help, the dietary advice and exercise, the bottom line is young are people getting larger. We still have a small number of jockeys that will make weight but the majority of riders coming to RACE weigh 9st so there’s no way they can claim off 8st 4lb.

“Ireland has bent over backwards. We can’t do anymore to alter weight structures. We need a Pan-European approach. That’s the next step. We do have a European Racecourse Doctors’ meeting every year - it’s coming up in two weeks’ time in London and it will be one of the things coming up on the agenda.”

The protocols established by Cullen and O’Loughlin are working well, he believes, but this is one of many areas where the failure to get other jurisdictions to follow Ireland’s high bar frustrates and baffles him. And that same reluctance has stifled progress in other areas too. Take helmets.

“We would like the European helmet standard to be much higher. It’s gone for formal vote at present and the majority of countries have gone with it. The compromise standard we have agreed is not as high as the standard which Ireland introduced two years ago, which is very disappointing.

“If you look back at what we had five years ago and what we will have by the end of this year, there has been a significant improvement but my professional opinion is that we could have had a far higher standard.”

The resistance is commercially-based, coming primarily from manufacturers. The standard adopted by Ireland is actually five years old and that this is still higher than what Europe is about to approve is staggering.

As an extension of his work in Europe, a test is being introduced in relation to concussion that will hopefully be introduced at the end of the year and which will hopefully increase the helmet standard. Elsewhere, Professor Michael Gilchrist of UCD is one of three leads of a Pan-European research study looking at equestrian, motorcycle and ski helmets. He is exercised by this because helmets save lives. But head trauma persists and when the material exists to improve protection, he wants it deployed.

CONCUSSION

Concussion is one of ‘the’ hot topics in sport at the moment, with a Hollywood movie of the same name coming out of the NFL crisis. Closer to home, rugby has finally appeared to get its act in gear, while soccer and the GAA have also had some unfortunate high profile failures in recent times.

With the number of falls for jump jockeys in particular, it is obviously a major issue but McGoldrick believes the protocols in place here are as good as what exists.

“Our knowledge of concussion is still - I won’t say it’s in the early stages, we know a lot about concussion - but we still have a lot to learn about it. The bottom line is we don’t know the minimum threshold for the brain to suffer concussion.

“Potentially the g-force at which the brain does induce concussion varies from day-to-day depending on whether you’ve had a sub-concussive blow in the previous few weeks. So we’ve a lot to learn. But all we do know is that certainly, if you suffer concussion, you must be fully recovered before you suffer a second concussion, potentially you may have long-term problems from it.

“Our standards would be as high as any in the world. I have to thank Michael Turner in Britain. When I took over eight years ago, Michael Turner already had a concussion protocol in the UK. I based our concussion protocol on his; it was a slight adaptation to it.

“Our standard is very robust. I am absolutely very happy with our concussion standards. Certainly, very few concussions slip through on the racecourse and rightly so. Every faller must be examined and must be assessed for concussion.

KNOWLEDGE

“My big concern is trying to get knowledge out to riders and parents of riders, or if concussions occur while riding out away from the racecourse, that they will treat them appropriately.

“Certainly, we can monitor concussion on the racecourse. The problem is in the non-elite setting. That’s my concern, that concussions occur when jockeys are riding out. And the concussions that occur among recreational riders.

“You see a lot about concussion in rugby and racing, but the elite sports count for less than 5% of all concussions. 95% of concussions occur in recreational sports.”

He is part of another working group attempting to draw up an education programme for GPs in relation to concussion and has presented a draft guideline. It is required for casualty doctors too because some hospitals still don’t manage concussion based on current guidelines.

“With knowledge on concussion, we’re probably 10 years behind the US. Only in the last five years we’re coming to terms. The GAA have a very good website on it, so do the IRFU but it’s getting that knowledge out to the national schools and secondary schools, getting it to the parents and coaches.

“They’re the ones we have to get to, to recognise the symptoms and if they have a potential concussion they will be removed from the fray and will go to the GP. And then again, from my point of view as a GP, that we as GPs know what the symptoms are, know how to manage it and for the adult not to let the child go back to sport too quickly.”

STOOD DOWN

Professional jockeys undergo a baseline concussion test every two years, by which they are assessed comparatively after every fall. For amateur riders, the test is required every five years. If they fail a test after a fall, they are stood down for six days. A second failed test leads to a further 14 days on the sideline. If, after that, riders still don’t pass, they are referred to a neurologist. As well as that, having suffered a concussion, they must sit a new baseline test the following year.

There have been reports in some sports of dumbing down to have a lower level of comparison. McGoldrick is positive this can’t be done with the jockeys’ examination.

“We use a combination of one called CogSport, an Australian (computerised) test, plus five what we call pen and paper neuro-psych tests (Colour trails, STROOP, Symboldigit, SCOLP, digit span) so it’s actually impossible to falsify it. We had a few who tried it when we introduced it in 2010 but we’ve a neuro-psychologist based in Guernsey who does the BHA as well and he picked them up immediately. I know the lads in rugby said they were falsifying it but the baseline test they were using at the time wasn’t as robust as what is used now. Nowadays you just cannot falsify it.”

McGoldrick is also a member of the International Concussion and Head Injury Research Foundation’s technical committee chaired by the aforementioned Turner. ICHIRF is carrying out major study labelled Concussion In Sport, investigating potential long-term effects of concussion.

Amongst the retired athletes being tested are more than 200 former jockeys, including A.P. McCoy, Richard Dunwoody, Peter Scudamore and John Francome. It will be launched in Ireland later this year, possibly during the Punchestown Festival.

Social difficulties have emerged from the shutters behind which they were barricaded for many years but as a practising GP - remarkably, he operates full time at Morefield Medical Centre along with his Turf Club role and the continuous research and campaigning - he had always been fully aware.

DEPRESSION

“Mark Enright and Willie Codd came out last year and opened up about depression. To me that was fantastic to see that happening in racing. I know from general practice that one in four people under 35 suffer depression. It’s the second most common thing I see every day.

“Following that, Sarah Jane Cullen and a colleague in Waterford did a study on our riders. The data is still being analysed but 49% of the jockeys admit to having depression in that survey. That’s away above the normal population, which you can probably understand. A lot of them would be finding it very hard to make ends meet.

“You have to make weight on a daily basis. In boxing you make weight 24 hours before. In rowing, you make weight half an hour but you have a half an hour to take food.

“Racing is the only sport where you make weight literally before you compete. So naturally there are psychological side-effects associated with that. It’s a very young age.”

PATHWAY

He hails the support provided by the Irish Jockeys’ Trust and Irish Injured Jockeys, and is very excited about a jockeys’ pathway programme being designed by Cullen and Warrington to manage riders in all aspects of their professions - physical, psychological and social - from the time they enter racing right through to retirement.

There have been so many improvements. The appearance of John Butler, the Turf Club physiotherapist on a track once a fortnight and at all festivals is a major step forward. The nutrition available free of charge at tracks is still some way behind that of a lot of their English counterparts but there are a few trailblazers here, and for a large part, the situation is better than it was; though that wouldn’t be difficult.

“There has been a sea change. Racecourse managers have been much more practical. It started with John Moloney in Galway. He was way ahead of his time with the quality of food he provided free of charge to the riders.

“I was in Navan on Sunday and the food was free and excellent. A lot of the courses are providing free food but there are still some tracks where the food is far from ideal. Certainly, the Association of Irish Racecourses have worked with the Turf Club, the Licensing Committee and the Jockeys’ Association to improve things.

“I want the jockeys to have adequate nutrition on the track and before leaving the track. That they don’t have to go to a takeaway on the way home and get fish and chips, or burger and chips, even worse and have to head to the sauna in the morning or even worse to make weight.”

“I just want the knowledge to be there in relation to health and safety. Concussion is a particular passion of mine, that we try and improve helmet standards and continue to improve them into the future. That would be my goal and hopefully get other countries in Europe to back the Irish position on it.

“The only standard is the highest level of protection. Nothing less than the highest level is adequate.”

And it is what the jockeys have always had from him.

Click here to read Robbie McNamara's tales from inside the weigh-room