Centaur Read online

  About the Book

  Declan Murphy was a natural on horseback, a precocious talent whose skill as a rider was matched by a desire to win every race he entered. Yet when his world came literally crashing down after a fall at Haydock Park in May 1994 – his skull shattered in twelve places, the last rites read and his obituary prepared by the Racing Post – he faced the biggest fight of all. To find a way through the darkness and terror that enveloped him and back to the light.

  For twenty-three years, Declan has been unable to tell his story, to bring to words existence on the frontier between life and death, to describe the incredible bond between man and horse. But now, in an extraordinary collaboration with Ami Rao, she has helped him to find those words, a way to piece together what happened before, during and after, what it all meant and what it means to us all.

  Centaur is an unforgettable tale of triumph, fear, love and loss, by turns primal, heartbreaking and inspirational, and ultimately, it is the story of hope.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Mayday

  Roger

  The Aftermath

  My Ghost

  My Declan

  Barney Curley

  Good Enough

  Four Years

  The Rise

  A Beautiful Girl

  In My Wake

  Two Picassos

  Zenith

  A Helmet and a Phone

  The Lawyer I Never Was

  The Fall

  Horse and Pony

  I Soar

  That Place in Time

  Hello

  Penumbra

  Twelve

  Loss

  Kaleidoscope

  Umbra

  Hubris

  Strength in Numbers

  Joanna

  Mr Turpin and the Grey Stallion

  Light

  Big Boys Don’t Cry

  Entrapment

  Heartbeat

  Why Me?

  A Little Concept of Time

  Centaur

  Into the Lap of the Gods

  Epilogue

  Ami’s Note

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  CENTAUR

  Declan Murphy and Ami Rao

  To You

  For You

  Forever You

  ‘If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery – isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.’

  Charles Bukowski, Factotum

  Mayday

  There is symphony in the movement of a horse.

  The gallop, for example, is a four-beat rhythm: hind leg, hind leg, fore leg, fore leg.

  You just have to listen for it, to hear it as I hear it, and you will realize how musical it is; how beautifully poetic.

  This is the gait of the racehorse; it strikes off with its non-leading hind leg, then the inside hind foot hits the ground before the outside fore, but just by a split second. The movement concludes with the striking off of the leading leg, followed by a moment of suspension when – in glorious majesty – all four hooves are off the ground. Even at 35 or 40 mph, when the animal appears to be flying, it follows this classic, controlled cadence. In truth, it is not flying at all; it is dancing.

  Hind leg, hind leg, fore leg, fore leg.

  I can hum it in my head.

  I have always followed this beat when I ride, moulding my body to the rhythm of my horse’s stride pattern. And in this way, we have understood each other, my horse and I, our bodies in perfect sync, the energy between us reverberating like the silent echoes of an unspoken voice.

  This is how I have always ridden. By an instinct, deep and wonderful.

  It never failed me. Until the day it did.

  May Day – Monday, 2 May 1994 – was a typical spring day at Haydock Park. The sun was shining brightly through a cloudless azure sky, the stands were packed with holidaymakers looking to have a grand day out. A gentle breeze blew across the racecourse, carrying happy voices, the tinkling of glasses, the familiar, very particular, scent of the horses …

  Ominous feelings seemed improbable in an atmosphere like that. And yet, I was troubled. Just the day before, Ayrton Senna had died in a fatal crash at the San Marino Grand Prix.

  I was haunted by this, by the emotions swimming around inside my head like demons. I couldn’t quite compute them. At the most simplistic level, a life had been lost. That in itself was profoundly tragic. But it was more than that. Senna was no ordinary man. Three-time Formula One World Championship winner, he was considered by many to be the single greatest racing driver of the modern era. And yet, he had died.

  What was more ironic, adding to the layers of sadness and confusion I felt over Senna’s passing, was that Senna himself had been under immense emotional pressure on the day he died, following the death of Formula One colleague Roland Ratzenberger just one day prior. It was later revealed that a furled Austrian flag was found in Senna’s car, which he had presumably intended to raise in honour of Ratzenberger after the race. That was never to be.

  It was little wonder that Senna’s death had cast a pall over the entire sports world. After all, we are all conditioned to believe that our heroes are invincible.

  To me, it was deeply unsettling, perhaps because for the first time in my life, it brought home the stark reality of my own mortality.

  I don’t say this lightly. I don’t say it with ignorance and I certainly don’t say it with arrogance. I am just telling you the truth.

  Yes, of course I knew that, like Senna, I was in a dangerous sport. But if you asked me if I had ever thought about death, I could look you in the eye and honestly say I hadn’t.

  Not because I didn’t think it possible. Only because I did.

  My teammate was a 1,200-pound animal, whose will I attempted to control at 35 mph. So to say that my profession was fraught with danger would be an understatement. But I was acutely aware of this. I approached race-riding with intuition and intelligence, equally split; there was no room for fear in this equation. I am not saying that I was fearless. How could I be? I’m only human. But I couldn’t afford to consider fear as part of my reality. Fearing fear would have been as good as quitting. So I conquered fear with belief. I rejected fear. I shunned it. And to the extent I could, I tried to keep it at bay.

  That I had suffered fewer falls than most of my colleagues was no coincidence. I was deliberate, measured and tactical. I would ride, feeling my horse’s rhythm, the beat of its movement; I would time my every stride, approaching my obstacles with almost academic precision.

  But the horse is an animal. An intelligent, unpredictable animal; a combination that can be as exhilarating as it can be deadly. And not even the most controlled and skilled jockey can predict which one it will be and when. So while I knew, as all jockeys do, that broken collarbones were lucky, death sad but not impossible, I certainly didn’t want to think about it.

  But Senna, uncomfortably, had forced me to.

  These were the thoughts in my head as Jim Hogan, my friend, driver and former European champion distance runner, d
rove me up on that beautiful spring morning to the racetrack at Haydock Park for the Crowther Homes Swinton Handicap Hurdle.

  On arriving at the racecourse, as was customary, I went into the weighing room and sat down in my place. Next to me was Charlie Swan, Irish champion rider, my rival and my friend.

  I must have seemed preoccupied – not the picture of quiet calm that I was best known to present before a race – because he asked me if I was all right.

  ‘Can you believe Ayrton Senna has died?’ I said to him.

  And quite unlike the light-hearted banter that usually takes place in a jockeys’ weighing room on any normal day, Charlie and I exchanged thoughts on Senna, his untimely death, and our own vulnerability. It helped to talk to a friend. By the end of our conversation, my mind was more at ease. I felt more relaxed, more myself, more ready to face the challenge that awaited me in a few minutes – my race.

  I put on my colours – distinctive red silks – and I went out into the paddock. Arcot was my only ride on the day. There were eighteen horses running in the Swinton Hurdle that afternoon, and I was riding the favourite.

  From the moment I got on the horse, I shut everything else out. This was my way – blocking out the world, distractions fading into the background, giving way to a laser-like focus. When I am in this state of ‘flow’, nothing else matters. And so, just like the blinkers on my horse, I had blinkers on my mind. Senna – for the duration of the race – was forgotten. My only objective was to win.

  As I started the race, I slotted Arcot into a good position, quickly finding his cruising speed. My judgement told me that there was sufficient pace in the race, so I got him to settle into a comfortable rhythm and I felt he did this well.

  After jumping the first five hurdles, I considered that the front runners were going a stride too fast, but I was quite content to be where I was for the moment. It was when jumping the last hurdle on the far side that I started to creep a little bit closer – still completely effortlessly, still completely in control. I felt I had everything in front of me covered, and I felt good.

  I was third in line approaching the second last hurdle and I could see the two horses in front of me were picking up speed again. I let out the rein, just a touch, maybe half an inch, and in doing so I was communicating to Arcot that I wanted him to lengthen his stride.

  He didn’t respond.

  And with this, it all started to come undone.

  I realized at this point that to have any chance of winning I would need two exceptional jumps from my horse, at the second last and last hurdles respectively. He came through impeccably at the second last, but I knew it was imperative for us to be in sync – body to body, muscle to muscle – to make that last and crucial jump.

  There are a lot of things about race-riding that can’t be learnt, they have to be felt. A jockey has to feel every movement of the horse underneath him and understand what each one means.

  And going into that last hurdle, I felt something very telling from the movement of that horse beneath me. I realized three things, each separate but inextricably linked. First, that the stride ahead of us was too long. Second, that Arcot would have to reach, to extend himself, to make it. And third and most important, that in my judgement, I didn’t think he could.

  He just didn’t have it in him – that fight – to make it.

  So I made a decision that would alter the course of my life. I changed tactic.

  Now, all that needed doing was for me to communicate my intent.

  When I was a little boy, I had a Shetland pony called Roger. He was my pony and he was beautiful, small and lithe, a rich chestnut in colour, with a cheeky white face and two white legs. I loved Roger – he was intense and expressive, independent and strong-willed, with a definite rebellious streak within him. And, like me, he didn’t like to be told what to do!

  One chilly autumn day, I rode Roger out across the fields with the sole purpose of getting him to do what I wanted him to do. We started off well, jumping all the ditches across maybe three or four fields, Roger dutifully obeying my every command. I remember grinning from ear to ear, feeling smugly pleased with myself. Alas, a little too soon!

  Because a few minutes later, when I decided it was time to turn back, Roger decided that he didn’t want to. Try as I may, he wasn’t going to jump the ditch on the way back.

  You see, here is the thing:

  Horses are living beings. They are spirited. They are stubborn. They are strong. In their natural state, they have a soul that is wild and free until the point they earn our trust. But even then, they have an instinct of their own. And the right to exercise it, at will.

  So I tried and I tried, first by coaxing and cajoling, and then – as I grew more impatient – by chiding and rebuking. My efforts were completely futile. Roger wouldn’t move.

  Then, stranded three fields from home with no way of getting back, I had an idea.

  I took my coat off and put it over Roger’s head. His head completely covered, and unable to see where he was going, he had no choice but to place his trust in me. He quietened immediately and I reversed him slowly into the ditch, then I climbed on his back, pulled the coat off and waited. Finding himself in the ditch now, Roger had no option but to jump out. No sooner had he done that, I turned him around in the direction of home. Roger jumped the ditch and jumped all the way home.

  Roger remained a pony of tremendous character, but something subtle changed from that day forth. Roger understood my will as much as he thought that he could force his will on me.

  We had learnt to communicate.

  At that last hurdle at Haydock Park, when I realized that my horse simply did not have the reserves to take off the way I had tactically imagined, I made a split-second decision.

  I decided to give him the opportunity to take an extra stride before he made his jump. But he didn’t take it.

  Instead, Arcot decided to go for the hurdle. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

  If I’d had the opportunity to take my coat off and put it over his head, so he could trust in my instinct, I would have grasped it in a heartbeat. But of course, I didn’t. Instead, I stood by helplessly – stranded like that day three fields from home – while our communication, that crucial silent dialogue which bonds horse and rider, shattered like a thin, fragile sheet of glass.

  And at that very instant – that fleeting snapshot in time – we rewrote my destiny.

  In reality, the series of events that followed unfolded within milliseconds of each other, but in my head they seemed to play out in slow motion, frame by frame until time itself stood frozen in disbelief.

  Arcot launched himself towards the belly of the hurdle in a valiant gesture of misplaced ambition.

  Aboard him, I realized what he had just done. My God, he’s gone for it.

  But it was much more complicated than that.

  The hyperextension of his body in reaching for the hurdle – the freakish, unnatural motion of it – snapped his pelvis in mid-flight, dragging his now lame rear end down to the ground.

  My stomach turned. He’s not going to make it.

  I could sense he was frightened now, fighting me.

  Then, fractions of a second later – as the same cold horror of realization dawned on the beast – his front legs paddled helplessly in the air before they smashed into the timber of the frame.

  Lame leg, lame leg, fore leg, fore leg.

  There was a deafening crash.

  And right then, in that moment of truth, I felt a strange calm, and my body and mind seemed somehow to disconnect, as if what happened next wasn’t happening to me at all.

  Just as my head flew forward with the momentum of the stride, the distressed horse’s head flew back, our two skulls colliding with a sickening thud that pulsated through the air. I lost consciousness before I was catapulted off the horse and thrown to the ground. And there we were, man and beast lying motionless in one mangled, burning heap of broken flesh.

  But it wasn’t over yet.
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  In the quiet stillness of the moment came the deafening roar of the thunder of hooves. I was now lying unconscious, directly in the path of the horses approaching me from behind. Next in line to finish the race was Cockney Lad, carrying aboard him an ashen-faced Charlie Swan.

  Trapped in the rhythm of his own beat, Cockney Lad advanced towards us, panic and fear filling his head when he saw our lifeless, tangled bodies on the ground ahead.

  Two obstacles, one decision. Instinct screamed within him.

  Frantically trying to avoid the larger of the two objects that lay stricken before him, he swerved away from the horse and made his choice.

  Eyes wide in frenzied resignation, he thrust his body forward and, capitulating under the force of his own momentum, his hoof hit my head, shattering my skull in twelve places.

  He galloped over me in one final, feverish crescendo.

  And then the music stopped.

  Roger

  The Aftermath

  The dull, hollow thud of hoof hitting head – life hitting life – reverberated hideously through the air.

  Then followed a deathly hush.

  In a cloud of dust, the other horses galloped past me to finish the race that they had begun, the sound of their hooves drowning out the sound of silence.

  Spectators gasped, colleagues prayed, reporters clocked the seconds. And everybody waited – frozen faces, bated breath – for me to awaken.

  But I lay in a deep, silent sleep, while the blood gushed out of my mouth and on to the ground of Haydock Park, staining it a deep, vivid red.

  My Ghost

  My ghost belongs to a different world.

  ‘Obviously!’ you say. ‘She’s a ghost.’

  ‘I don’t want this to be a racing book,’ I say.

  ‘That’s easy,’ she says. ‘I don’t know anything about horses.’

  I ask her what she knows of racing.

  ‘Oh,’ she says hopefully, ‘I’ve been to Ladies Day at Ascot!’

  I know then, that she’s the one.

  She makes me watch videos of my old races on YouTube – videos I didn’t even know existed. ‘You were a beautiful rider, Declan,’ she says.