John Thomas McNamara, who died recently at his home near Croom, Co Limerick, was one of Ireland's most renowned amateur jockeys. A five-time champion rider on the point-to-point fields, he rode 602 winners in total "between the flags" during a 19-year career. He was also successful on the racecourse including four times at the Cheltenham festival.
Renowned even among professional colleagues for his toughness and ability in the saddle, McNamara’s greatest struggle came when sustaining life-threatening injuries at the 2013 Cheltenham festival in a fall at the first fence of the Kim Muir Chase. His injuries included fractures to the C3 and C4 vertebrae, leaving him paralysed from the neck down.
His courage during extensive treatment at hospitals in Britain and Ireland, and when he finally returned home to manage the pre-training of horses, many of which belonged to one his most staunch supporters, champion owner JP McManus, humbled many both within racing and outside the sport.
It is a curio within Irish racing that being an amateur jockey is often a full-time occupation. No one doubted that a man known throughout the sport as JT followed in a long tradition of supposed part-timers more than capable of holding their own against even the finest professionals.
Point-to-point
It was on the point-to-point fields, however, that McNamara became a legendary figure. His career total of winners on a circuit which represents the grassroots of Irish National Hunt racing and which has produced many of its finest talents, both human and equine was, until recently, a record.
A champion on the point-to-point circuit four times on his own, he also shared a fifth title in 2002 with the young Davy Russell, who later became a champion professional jockey.
The circumstances were an illustration of the general sportsmanship and respect that exists among jump riders. Russell was a single winner ahead going into the last day of the season. McNamara won the first race and then both men agreed to not ride again that day.
Derek O’Connor succeeded McNamara as the point-to-point’s champion rider, but credits his rival as the man chiefly responsible for bringing a professional approach to riding on the amateur scene.
In association with trainer Enda Bolger, McNamara also brought a new professionalism to banks racing at the Punchestown festival, including when riding Risk Of Thunder, a horse owned by actor Sean Connery, to the last of his seven victories in the La Touche Cup.
Rapid expansion
The popularity of banks races at the Punchestown festival contributed to a rapid expansion of cross-country races elsewhere, including at the Cheltenham festival where McNamara won over the marathon circuit on the JP McManus-owned Spot Thedifference in 2005.
He rode three other festival winners at Cheltenham including Drombeag in the 2007 Foxhunters Chase and Teaforthree in the 2012 National Hunt Chase. Perhaps McNamara’s finest moment in the saddle, however, had come a decade earlier in the same race.
On the McManus owned Rith Dubh, a famously tricky mount who often failed to display the same resolution as some of the elite professionals who had failed to win on him, the Irish amateur kidded, nursed and cajoled the horse over four miles to ultimately record an unlikely victory.
The legendary champion jockey Tony McCoy described McNamara’s ride as “as good as I have ever seen or will ever see”.
Cheltenham injuries
Sadly it was also at the Cheltenham festival that he sustained the injuries which would ultimately lead to his death. The memory of McNamara’s courage in the face of adversity will remain indelibly impressed on the memories of those closest to him. His achievements on the track will indelibly remain in racing history.
He is survived by his wife Caroline, children Dylan, Harry and Olivia, his parents, John and Kathleen, and his siblings Aongus and Vande.