'He was one of us' - Patrick Mullins

I don’t want to write this. But I don’t want to not write this. I’m not even sure where to start or what to say. I had steadfastly believed Michael would recover just as Brian Toomey or Matthew O’Connor did. The news was worst case but it always is and I told myself he would be fine after a while. But he won’t. It was Saturday when I began to realise that, the day we have the bumper in memory of one of my best friends Ronan Lawler, who was killed in an accident riding out when he was 21. I remember my father calling me but my mother having to take the phone to tell me. But it was delivered in one bolt from the blue, there was no time for hope or prayers for miracles.

Michael has been in Closutton most weeks for nearly three years, and I’ve ridden against him for years before that. He was quiet but confident. Intelligent. Tall and slim, narrower than most. Well spoken. Stylish and strong. Ambitious. Polite. I don’t know what else to say because it isn’t enough. If you knew him, you knew him and if you didn’t, that is your loss. I’m writing this with my four-month-old baby babbling away in the background and that makes me sadder again for some reason that I can’t quite articulate right now.

I wasn’t at Thurles when his fall happened but when I heard he’d been air lifted and racing abandoned, I tried to remember whether racing was abandoned when David Mullins was airlifted out of there. Sure if David was airlifted out and okay, then so would Michael. That’s how it works, isn’t it. I don’t remember Kieran Kelly but I do remember seeing Ruby talking about him on 'Jump Boys' saying that there’s probably going to be one jockey in every generation and you just hope it’s not you. Why would it be you after all.

My father rang me again on Sunday morning. I went and bought the papers after I got the call about Ronan, and I did the same when I heard about Michael. I don’t know why. I turned the pages but I couldn’t tell you what’s in them. My phone, as most jockeys’ phones probably are, is constantly beeping with texts offering consolation. What are we supposed to say? The baby is still babbling, but like the rest of the weigh room right now, I can’t bring myself to feel any joy.

Michael wasn’t just good at riding racehorses. He was excellent. When I watched his takedown of Facile Vega in the Supreme Novices' aboard Marine Nationale, all I could think was, 'Man, this guy is cool'. The way he sat between the home bend and the last. Every jockey in the weigh room would be proud to have ridden that winner. Cool, calm, precise. Bullseye.

Then he went and rode a second one. A double on the Tuesday of Cheltenham. He got to experience something very few have or will. That’s a comfort, I think. Yes, Michael died riding in a race. But boxers die in the ring, racing drivers die on the road, football players drop dead on the pitch. People crash their cars every day. Planes fall out of the sky. When your time is up, it’s up and it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing. We weren’t best friends or family but we were friends and I’m proud to say that, and he made an impression on me that made me feel I had to write this, to pay some kind of tribute, for whatever it’s worth. He had a real genuine smile, a smile I won’t forget. He was one of us. 

He is one of us. And he always will be.