Bridie and John Kelly have passed on, but inside their Kildare home, the memories live on.
They reared a family of eight children in Carbury, four girls and four boys, and their walls are adorned with dozens of pictures so typical of an Irish family home.
But one of their son’s achievements is given special treatment, taking pride of place in the hallway and in the sitting room where it’s impossible to miss.
Kieran Kelly only got to ride one Cheltenham Festival winner; it came 20 years ago this week on the great Hardy Eustace in the Sun Alliance Hurdle.
It was the biggest moment of his thriving career.
He likely would have ridden many more but for tragically losing his life, just five months later on August 12, 2003 — four days after suffering severe head injuries in a fall at Kilbeggan.
He had just turned 25.
It was a desperate time that rocked the tightly-knit Kelly family and shook Irish racing to its very core.
It had been 17 years since the last jockey died on an Irish racecourse and Kelly was a top rider with a big job at Dessie Hughes’ Curragh yard. He was a jockey going places.
**************
Kieran’s twin sister Collette and older sister Ann warmly greet us.
Collette carries the helmet worn by Kieran that tragic night and the whip he had used to steer home the last of his 122 career winners in a race just 90 minutes before his fatal fall at the County Westmeath track.
His initials KAK are still visible, inscribed on the back, while a Miraculous Medal placed by his mother poignantly remains inside.
“Mammy was always more worried about him driving to the race meetings. They were all over the country and he was a young lad with a nice car, and we used to be more worried about the driving. More so than the racing probably,” says Ann.
“We never thought that what happened could have happened. It hadn’t happened in so long. He was getting the odd fall and had broken collarbones and his leg, a few ribs I think too. He had plenty of breakages but we never thought it would come to that,” added Collette.
“It’s just something you’d never think was going to happen. It really just wasn’t on our radar. It was such a shame. It was devastating.”
Kieran Anthony Kelly was born in Carbury, Co Kildare into a family with no involvement in racing.
“There were no horses in the family,” says Collette. “And Kieran didn't play any other sport."
“Mickey Flynn moved in to train across the road and Kieran and another chap went down one Saturday to do a few jobs and Mickey said ‘yeah, come back the next day’ and Kieran went back. I don’t think the other chap did. And that’s where it all started. He would have been only 12 or 13 then.”
Flynn was a former jockey, winning the Irish Grand National in 1986 on Insure, and took Kieran under his wing. He attended the RACE academy on the Curragh and served his apprenticeship with Flynn before moving to Dessie Hughes in 1997.
“He was very dedicated. The diet was very hard on him. He was pretty tall, like Collette. But he just had a love for it,” adds Ann.
“He did it all himself. Some are born into it or brought up with it but Kieran went the hard route into it. It was all his own hard work. It wasn’t handed to him.
“He worked so hard for it. He was just getting going, starting to get winners. I don’t even think we realised how well he was doing. I don’t think we did. The importance of all these races that he was involved in or winning.”
The danger was always there but the Kelly sisters never imagined the sport would take their Kieran.
“I’ve often heard the first question a jockey asks the doctor is; ‘when will I be back’?. And Kieran was no different. It was a tough life. There were no days off. But he never complained about it and it was all about the next race meeting and the next race. He was very ambitious,” says Ann.
Those ambitions took Kieran to the biggest stage for a jump jockey. He rode for Martin Pipe in the Grand National and the day after winning on Hardy Eustace, he had a ride in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
But his biggest achievement was that Sun Alliance Hurdle win on Hardy Eustace. A teak tough horse that went on to win two Champion Hurdles in 2004 and 2005.
Iconic victories that Kieran sadly wasn’t there to share.
Collette remembers the time well. “It was huge. It probably opened our eyes to the scale of it all. People were ringing and congratulating my mother and father and neighbours were calling. The whole community in Carbury were so proud of him, but Kieran took all that in his stride, he wasn’t one for attention.”
Ironically, Hardy Eustace is still alive —at the age of 26 and one year older than Kieran was when he died — sharing a paddock with Gold Cup winner Kicking King and Beef Or Salmon at the National Stud.
“We’ve all been to see Hardy Eustace in the National Stud. Daddy was there too. It’s lovely to see him and to bring our kids to see him. It’s beautiful over there,” says Ann.
A month after his Cheltenham win, Kelly was victorious at the Aintree Festival when landing the Mersey Novices’ Hurdle aboard Leinster, also trained by Hughes.
He could also claim to have ridden a Grand National winner, having partnered Monty’s Pass to win at Tipperary in May 2001. The gelding was one of 32 winners Kelly rode that season, his best numerically.
It was a sweltering summer’s night and low-key meeting at Kilbeggan when Kieran sadly became the first jockey to suffer fatal injuries at an Irish racecourse since Cork-born Jim Lombard died after a fall at the 1986 Punchestown Festival.
Kelly, who had earlier won the Foster And Allen Maiden Hurdle on Barrack Buster, was riding the Dessie Hughes-trained Balmy Native in the Joe Cooney Memorial Handicap Chase when the horse fell at the fifth fence from home and Kelly was kicked on his head when on the ground.
“Daddy was at the races in Kilbeggan. He had just retired and had just started going to the races, the local ones. I think he was there on his own,” says Ann.
She remembers: “Mammy’s cousin was at the races that evening and as Kieran was going back into the weigh room after winning he asked him would he have ‘any more’? Seemingly Kieran said to him ‘there’ll be no more winners’.
“Of course he meant that evening, but there was no more.
“They brought him to Tullamore Hospital first and then to Beaumont but I think even then when we heard he was gone to Beaumont we thought it was just precautionary.
“There wasn’t a mark on him. No sign of an injury. His head didn’t swell or anything like that. It was shocking that it happened and even for the four days that we were up there we didn’t think it would.”
Kelly failed to regain consciousness and his life-support machine was switched off on August 12.
“It was dreadful for my parents. To be put into that situation. We are a very quiet family.
“We weren’t used to it. But nothing or nobody could prepare us for that.”
**********
Kelly’s funeral was huge, some 1,500 people attending the church in Carbury — inside and outside — his coffin draped in the Hardy Eustace colours.
More came to the Kelly house with Collette recalling: “The people that came in the front door here, a lot we didn’t know. And they all had a story to tell. And the letters we got too. Everybody was so supportive.
“I remember on the day of the funeral being here and all the jockeys walked behind the hearse and we’re three or four kilometres from the church. It was lovely to see.
“It hit them very hard. They were mostly young lads. The community here was also devastated. We’re still devastated really but we’re so proud of him too for what he achieved.
“There is a great community in the industry. And they all got on so well. It was clear to be seen at all the masses afterwards, every year the same people would turn up at his anniversary mass.
“Every year Dessie Hughes would come back here for tea after mass. He was brilliant. It’s sad to think that he’s gone too.
“The Hughes family were heartbroken too. It was very hard on them as well.
“It’s lovely that there’s a race named after him in Kilbeggan every year. It’s nice. We like going down to that and the kids like coming down to it as well.
“That means the world to us that he’s remembered.”
“It’s hard in one way. You’re going in and you’re getting this eerie feeling, driving into the place. But then when you’re up there and the race is on and all that it’s nice. People still approach us as he had so many friends young and old through the racing.”
Kieran Kelly’s legacy goes on and in 2012 his close friend Daryl Jacob dedicated his Grand National win on Neptune Collonges to his late pal — kissing the sky.
The pair once shared a house on the Curragh and Jacob always credited Kelly for the massive influence he had on his career and for keeping him going during low points in his life.
He still has a picture of Kieran tucked into the sun visor in his car.
“Kieran’s death hit me massively. You never get over a thing like that. His loss made me more determined than ever to achieve something for him because he’d taken me under his wing and looked after me so well,” Jacob says of his friend.
“He was one of my best friends, he looked after me. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for him.
“Kieran taught me never to take things for granted. He’d go through the tapes of his rides every night, showing me what he’d done right and wrong and advising me on what I should do in a race.
“My career was going nowhere in Ireland. I had only a handful of rides, I wasn’t dedicated back then and would be out with the lads at weekends. Kieran was the one who suggested I should come to England because there are so many more opportunities here.”
*********
When Kelly’s death was announced on that Tuesday evening, the last two races at Gowran Park were abandoned as a mark of respect. But not without some controversy.
Ruby Walsh described it as his ‘worst day in racing’ and devoted a passage of his autobiography to the events that unfolded at the Kilkenny track.
“We were racing at Gowran that evening when the news came through. It knocked the stuffing out of every one of us. It was just sickening to hear.
“Norman Williamson was one of the older lads and he took it upon himself to tell fellas one by one as they were coming off the track. I liked the way he did that — no big announcement, no histrionics. Just a quiet word in each man’s ear so they could take a little time with it.
“I took off my colours and said I was going home. There were two races left on the card but I didn’t care about them just at that moment. There were a few of the lads based at the Curragh who really knew Kieran well, the likes of Alan Crowe and Garrett Cotter and more and they had no interest in riding in the last two races. So myself and Norman went to the stewards.
“I’ll never forget the stewards in Gowran that evening and I still can’t believe the stance they took. They could have had a bit of human decency and made life a lot easier for us, but we nearly had to beg them to call off the last two races.
“Norman and I went into them and said, ‘Look, don’t know if you’ve heard but Kieran Kelly has passed away in the last hour or so. Now, we’re not refusing to ride in the last two races but there are a lot of lads in the weighing room who don’t want to ride and we’d prefer it if you called the last two races off as a mark of respect.’
“I expected them to just say, ‘Yeah, Jesus, of course we will. Sure it’s only right.’ But the chairman of the stewards said, ‘Let’s get this straight — you’re not refusing to ride. So if we decide to race, you’ll ride?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, but we’re asking as a mark of respect that ye don’t do that.’
“In the end they called the two races off but they weren’t happy about doing it. They were worried about what they’d tell the public.
“I told them to show me where the microphone was and I’d make the announcement myself.
“So I did. I told them that Kieran Kelly had passed away in the afternoon. That he was a proper jockey and even more so a proper man. And that as a mark of respect, his friends and colleagues in the weighing room have asked that the last two races be cancelled. The public are decent people and not one of then said a bad word as we left.
“That was the worst day I had in racing. Probably the worst day any of us ever had. “
*********
Collette and Ann still smile fondly when they think of their brother Kieran.
“He was a messer. He loved a bit of divilment. He was also the best in the world though. He was a lovely fella in general and you could see he’d great love for his sport and his friends and family.”
He had bought a house and had a girlfriend and his whole life was ahead of him.
A line from his memorial card that sits on the kitchen table jumps out.
“Deep in our hearts you will always stay, a lifetime of memories never to fade.”
Horse racing should never forget their fallen heroes. And 20 years on we’ll think of Kieran Kelly and his family this week on the anniversary of his finest hour.
Hardy by name and hardy by nature.
READ NEXT:
Henry de Bromhead heads to Cheltenham Festival with different outlook following death of son Jack
Cheltenham Festival 2023: Robbie Power's thoughts on Henry de Bromhead's runners and more
Rachael Blackmore hungry for more success as Cheltenham edges closer
Cheltenham Festival Quiz: Test your knowledge of the famous meeting
