THE falls, the injuries, they are part of it. Spells on the sidelines. Thuas seal, thíos seal. Sean Flanagan rode at Cork on the Friday before Galway. He rode Lopito in the second division of the two-and-a-half-mile handicap hurdle. They were still in contention, they were just coming under pressure as they started to round the home turn, when Lopito stumbled and came down, firing his rider head first into the ground.

As a National Hunt rider, you expect falls. They are in the job description. You don’t expect them when you race around a home turn, but still you are conditioned to react, to brace yourself. The first part of the rider’s body to hit the ground that evening was his head and yet, he wasn’t concussed. He just broke his sternum in two places.

“I’m not sure how I broke my chest bone!” says Sean Flanagan now. “I can only think that, when my head hit the ground, my chin hit my sternum. That’s the only way it could have happened. It was just one of those things though. There was nothing anybody could have done about it. The ground was beautiful that night at Cork as well. And thankfully the horse was fine.”

Missing Galway

Sean Flanagan missed Galway. There was pain all right, but the pain of missing Galway was more acute than any physical discomfort. That’s jockeys for you. It just felt like broken ribs, he tells you.

When he fractured his jaw in a fall at Naas in February, all he wanted to do was get back before Cheltenham. He got back too, he was back riding at Naas on the Sunday before Cheltenham, and he was all set for the spring festivals that followed Cheltenham, Fairyhouse and Punchestown and Aintree, before the world changed.

“It was a frustrating season last season all right. I was out for five or six weeks at the start of the season, I missed good rides, I missed Minella Fair winning his beginners’ chase, I missed Sixshooter winning his maiden hurdle. But that’s the way it goes. I have ridden winners when other jockeys have been out injured. Then I had that fall at Naas in the spring, and then the season ended.

“In the broad scheme of things, of course, it was nothing. When you hear about the hardship that people had to endure.

“We were able to keep the show on the road, and it was great that I got to spend time with Lauren, and with the kids. L.J. is one and a half, and Lilah will be three in May. We just had to put things on hold.”

He and Lauren were due to get married in June. That’s on hold too.

“Lilah is so switched on. She loves racing, but I think she got used to me being at home. When I’m going racing now, she asks me if I am really going racing again.”

Sean Flanagan started going racing early in life. In the beginning, ponies provided an escape route from school. He didn’t know a cob from a colt when, one day in school, his class were told that, if they helped out in the local riding school, they would get out of school two hours early on Friday. The initial motivation was the time off school but, very quickly, the ponies were his sole focus.

He convinced his parents to get him a pony of his own. Liz Doyle wasn’t far away, and he started going in there and working with the horses, on Saturdays and holidays and on the odd occasion when he was able to skip classes.

He went to RACE, the Racing Academy and Centre of Education, and he learned lots. From a standing start, with no family background in horses or in racing, his learning curve was steep, and he lapped it all up. He was assigned to Martin Brassil, and he learned more. Nickname was there at the time, and Barrack Buster, and Numbersixvalverde. He led Numbersixvalverde up before the 2005 Thyestes Chase. That was some buzz.

Thyestes winner

If this is how it feels to lead up the winner of the Thyestes, the youngster thought, imagine what it would feel like to actually ride the winner of the Thyestes. Five years later he found out, as he drove the Jimmy Mangan-trained Whinstone Boy to victory in the Gowran Park feature.

He had had good days in the interim too. He won the Grade 2 Greenmount Park Chase on Merry Cowboy for Dusty Sheehy at Limerick’s 2007 Christmas Festival. He claimed 3lb off bottom weight Penny’s Bill and sprang a 50/1 shock in the Pierse Hurdle at Leopadstown in 2009 for Liz Doyle, and he teamed up with the Colm Murphy-trained Voler La Vedette to win a Grade 3 mares’ hurdle at the 2009 Punchestown Festival, and to win a listed mares’ hurdle back at Punchestown the following October.

Even so, despite the high-profile successes, it wasn’t easy. Ireland is so competitive. He lost his claim and he had a few injuries, a dislocated shoulder, a broken elbow. All of that made it difficult to build momentum.

England

He went to England, over to Evan Williams, and he worked hard. It wasn’t easy there either though, it was hard to get the breaks, there were lots of lads with Evan Williams, all vying for rides. He got some opportunities, he had over 20 rides in the winter of 2011, but no winners.

He came back to Ireland for Christmas that year, and he rode Gamede for Liz Doyle in the Pertemps qualifier at Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival. He had ridden Gamede to win his maiden hurdle at Naas the previous March, and he had ridden him to finish second in a handicap hurdle back at Naas that October.

Gamede travelled well too in that handicap hurdle at Leopardstown. They had moved into fourth place along the inside as they raced to the fourth last flight, the leader Dooney Rock in their sights. They got in tight to the fourth last though and, as soon as they landed, Flanagan felt his horse go wrong behind. He pulled his horse up and had dismounted literally within a couple of strides. Regrettably, however, it wasn’t enough to save the horse.

Sickening blow

That was it for the rider. He had had enough. It was a sickening blow. He decided there and then, in the back straight at Leopardstown, on the landing side of the fourth last flight, that he would stop riding. And he did, for a while.

Then he got friendly with Jimmy Kelly, brother of Harry Kelly, who asked him to go down to them, that they were building a yard and that they had a lot of young horses.

Flanagan got going again, rediscovered his passion for horses. He went to America for three months and rode for Jack Fisher. He came back and rode winners for Harry Kelly and Liz Doyle. Momentum built and, with it, his confidence grew. When you ride winners, you ride with confidence, you ride well, you get on more horses, you get on better horses, you ride winners, you grow in confidence. It’s a cycle.

Meade rider

When Davy Condon retired, he called Noel Meade and asked if he could go in and ride out. Six months later, Paul Carberry broke his leg. It was desperate for Paul Carberry, but the horses had to run and somebody had to ride them. Right place, right time. Flanagan shared the rides with Ger Fox and Jonathan Moore, until, one day, he was named as first rider for Noel Meade.

It was some fillip: first rider for Noel Meade. His self-belief grew and he hit the milestones, the big wins. He rode Disko to win the Flogas Chase at Leopardstown in February 2017, a first Grade 1 winner. He won the Christmas Chase back at Leopardstown the following December on Road To Respect, on whom he also won the Champion Chase at Down Royal the following November, and the Champion Chase at Down Royal again last year. He won the Liverpool Hurdle at Aintree on Identity Thief, he won the Troytown Chase at Navan on Tout Est Permis, he won the PWC Champion Chase at Gowran Park on Snow Falcon.

This season, he is zinging and touching wood.

“Noel has the horses in unbelievable form,” he says. “Flat and National Hunt. It just shows you, how good a trainer he is, to be able to win those group races on the flat and have the National Hunt horses in the form that they are in.”

The relationship between trainer and rider works well. He is in Noel’s four days a week but, when his commitments to his boss allow, he likes to ride out for other trainers when he can. Henry de Bromhead, Denis Hogan, Brendan Duke, Gearoid O’Loughlin, Gavin Cromwell. He rode a double at Downpatrick two weeks ago, both winners for his boss Noel Meade but, when he rode a treble at Limerick two days later, two of his three winners were for outside yards.

“I try to get into point-to-point yards as well too when I can. I’m lucky that I’ve built up good relationships with a good few trainers, and my agent Ruaidhrí Tierney does a great job for me.”

Strange season this though.

Tough on owners

“It’s very tough on racecourses,” says the rider. “And for the owners, who can’t be there to see their horses race. But I think that most people understand the situation, and appreciate that at least it’s good that racing is continuing. I usually travel to the races on my own anyway, I’m usually coming from a different part of the country to other jockeys.”

Strange that the weigh room these days can be a bar or a restaurant.

“You’re used to sitting beside the same people in the weigh room, discussing things with them. The weigh room is the same all over the country in normal times, we sit in the same positions, so you’d have the same people around you. These days though, we are all spread out, and it’s usually ordered alphabetically. So you’re beside different people. And it’s unusual to not get to speak to the owner after the race. The racecourses are doing a great job though, we’re well spread out, name tags on tables, jellies and drinks, that type of thing.”

Second in table

Sean Flanagan sits second in the jockeys’ championship at present, just three behind Rachael Blackmore and four in front of Paul Townend. It’s good company. He has ridden 35 winners already. Last year, he rode 36 winners for the entire season.

Looks like he will hit another milestone soon then.