No Lonesome Boatman

By Stephen Dwyer

A few years ago, Mick Kinane bought a fishing boat. He was in his mid forties at the time and contemplating retirement, as one does after 35 years of long service at one’s trade. He had planned to use the boat at his leisure, doing some coarse fishing on the Shannon. Some quiet time was planned, away from the manic lifestyle of being one of the world’s finest horsemen. Kinane didn’t get around to captaining the boat for some time though as he had to pilot another machine, one by the name of Sea The Stars.

I have never met Mick Kinane, I do know we share the same birthday, June 22nd, and that he will be 51 this year. His father, Tommy, was a top National Hunt jockey who won a Champion Hurdle on Monksfield in 1978. Mick Kinane rode his first winner, Muscari, at Leopardstown on March 19th 1975. Muscari was Kinane’s very first public mount and this was a sign that the young Kinane was a prodigy from the very beginning.

Since Muscari, what has Kinane won? In a word: everything. He won almost 1,500 races including three Epsom Derbies, four 2,000 Guineas, the Melbourne Cup in Australia and, in the United States, the Belmont Stakes. Kinane also has four wins in Breeders’ Cup races. Three Prix de l’Arc de Triomphes in three separate decades, the Indian Derby and Guineas, the UAE Guineas, two Irish Derbies, Gold Cups, the list is astonishing. He has been champion jockey of Ireland on 13 occasions. The man is one of the greatest jockeys of all time.

Tipperary-born Kinane retired last December. He was stable jockey to leading flat trainer, John Oxx at the time who described him simply as “the complete professional in every way”. His riding career ended on an incredible high following the exploits of that superstar, Sea The Stars. Kinane has now taken up the role of Horse Racing Ireland’s flat ambassador for 2010. He replaced Johnny Murtagh in this position. His aims are mainly to raise the profile of flat racing in Ireland and to encourage younger people to go racing. On an international scale he will be the flag-bearer for flat racing, a familiar smiling face for so many years in the winning enclosure, HRI know that in Kinane they will receive excellence, honesty and persona. The qualities required for any ambassador.

Also a champion breeder, he bred the 2007 Derby winner, Authorized. Kinane is an expert at every facet of flat racing. No doubt he will miss riding, although he still rides for John Oxx twice a week, it will be the camaraderie of the weighing room he will miss most. With this new venture he is still involved in racing on a day to day capacity and probably forever will be.

I believe he will make a great ambassador; no doubt he has his challenges. He will want to bolster attendance figures at race meetings and rouse interest in flat racing throughout his tenure. Also, in targeting a younger racing audience he has had to embrace technology and the internet. Perhaps one of his minor troubles is that he can’t use Twitter or Facebook. The day after he set up a social networking account on Facebook he said to his daughter “I had 61 new friends that I hadn’t got this morning”.

With the connections he has built up over the years, his myriad of fans and his new friends on the internet, the role of flat ambassador is tailor made for the peerless Mick Kinane. If he ever does manage to pilot that boat on the Shannon, he will be no lonesome boatman.

But for now, like all stars, just watch him shine.

By Stephen Dwyer