“He chose to try and jump me, failed to make it and landed on my head with his hoof, shattering my skull in 12 places and leaving me with two blood clots on the brain.”
Declan Murphy released his book Centaur recently, and what a story he has to tell.
The intrigue of the title, which turns out to be a ‘mythical creature with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a horse’, is only matched by the intrigue of Declan Murphy’s story. The Limerick born jockey fractured his skull in a dozen places and lived to tell the tale after a freak accident at Haydock racecourse in 1994.
Murphy told his story during an all revealing discussion on RTÉ Radio 1’s Today with Sean O Rourke.
The jockey grew up in Hospital in Limerick. Riding horses and ponies was always a massive part of his life. “We rode ponies in the same way as kids in others countries ride bicycles,” he said. “It was just for fun; everything was just for fun.”
“I developed a great instinct for riding ponies, falling off ponies. Nobody asking you were you okay, you got up, you got back on. You’re developing a confidence at that part of your life that you never ever think that you will depend heavily on at a later part of your life.”
“I never wanted to be a jockey. To me, it was just a hobby. I loved being challenged by horses or ponies and honing that relationship, really refining that and getting feel with a horse. That’s what I loved. The part of racing horses never really appealed to me.”
It was a meeting with the gambler turned trainer Barney Curley that prompted him to pursue a career in horse-riding.
Murphy went on to enjoy a short but successful career as Josh Gifford’s stable jockey, winning a Cheltenham Queen Mother Champion Chase along the way. It was a short career because of that fateful Haydock day. A day that caused him to forget his entire riding career leading up to the accident.
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Murphy’s brush with death came on the Bank Holiday Monday after a weekend that saw Austrian motor-racing driver Roland Ratzenberger die during qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix.
The next day at the same track, iconic Brazilian Ayrton Senna was killed in a similar accident when he crashed into a wall. Senna, ironically was a sporting hero of Murphy’s.
Murphy arrived to Haydock that morning, with the place understandably reeling in shock of the sporting tragedies of the previous days. Little did Murphy know that he would end the day in hospital after a crashing fall and impact from his horse Arcot plunged him into a coma from which doctors believed he wouldn’t wake.
The Racing Post even ran a headline ‘Declan Murphy dies after horror fall’ … such was the hopelessness of his situation.
Murphy’s family came to the Liverpool hospital in which he lay, with a decision to make on whether or not to turn off the life-support machine that sustained him.
Had they flown to Liverpool they’d have reached Murphy in three hours; but his father’s fear of flying meant they took a boat – a 12-hour journey.
Murphy woke seven hours into his family’s journey.
So began his road to recovery, which was dominated by his indomitable spirit and steely determination. He recalled:
“I was in a very deep, dark place. I had to crawl through a darkened tunnel filled with danger on my hands and knees.”
It was almost like beginning his life again, from square one. “I had to be prepared to lose everything just to gain that one something,” he said, “but that one something was of such significance, it was my life.”
His ambition and drive highlighted by the fact that he rode a horse, a winner to victory 18 months later. This was a key moment in his recovery and shines a light on his admirable drive and ‘never say die’ attitude. “When I won that race I felt many emotions: elation, jubilation, everything… but relief was the one emotion that overpowered me.”
Murphy has recovered step by step. He learned to walk, to run, to ride again, and went on to get his life back on track becoming hugely successful property developer living in Barcelona.
He has now released Centaur to tell us more on his remarkable story.
