In the lap of the gods

After O’Connor made his exit, the music was changed to Beautiful Day by U2. So apt that you’d almost suspect they knew. Did O’Connor know? At the press conference he said he “never expected it.” But reminded of his humility the following morning, he laughs out loud. O’Connor has never been afraid of straight-talking, but he checked himself in front of the world’s media. “In my own mind,” he said yesterday, “I thought I’ d a great chance.” That’s more like it.

Why not? Whatever hills he climbed in the last four years he could see this peak from every point on the journey. Showjumping was so low in 2000 that Ireland didn’t even send a team to the Sydney Olympics, but that year O’Connor bought his first horse transporter, purchased with £100,000 of borrowed money, and along the outside he painted his dream in bright letters: “Working towards the summer Olympics 2004,” it read. It wasn’t a boast, just a statement of his ambition, his propulsive drive.

A couple of weeks before the team left for Athens, he set out his prospects plainly: “He’s jumped 20 or more Nations Cups. I’ve one of the best horses in the world. There are no grey areas. In Aachen he jumped fantastically. If he repeats that I’ll win a medal.”

A clear in the first qualifying round last Sunday franked his confidence, but his performance in the Nations Cup on Tuesday knocked him sideways. The only thing was that it was too bad to be true. “He had five fences down in two rounds. He hasn’t had five fences down in the last two years.” O’Connor sensed there was something wrong. There was stiffness in his movement and when the Irish vet Marcus Swail examined the horse, he could see he had problems bending his neck on the left-hand side. It was nothing critical and it was a relief to have an explanation.

The horse was given physio and rest and when O’Connor took him for a spin on Thursday night, the old bounce was back. He felt good about his chances again. Four faults in the afternoon round kept him in the mix.

Only two riders had gone clear and the course set for the evening was a monster. Secretly, O’Connor was happy.

“I walked the course and I knew it would suit me. It was very big and it was very technical but my horse only starts jumping when the fences are big. You had to make sudden adjustments and decisions between fences — four or five strides — and my horse responds well to that. He’s very rideable. You can talk to him.”

His first thought after the afternoon session was that four faults would only set him up for a place in the top 10, but once they saw the course for the evening they knew that everything would change. “I’d nothing to lose. If I’d gone clear in the first round it would have been harder. I looked at it and I thought the chances of the three riders in front of me going clear were slim and I knew if I could jump clear I’d get a medal.”

After he finished, there were eight riders left. He watched them all until the last two. By then he was guaranteed a bronze and Eddie Macken told him to go to the warm-up ring in case there was a jump-off. There were no television screens down there, but he could tell from the groans of the crowd when a fence was down.

Nick Skelton was last. A clear would give him gold. O’Connor thought the most he could hope for was that the Briton would have one fence down. He knocked three.

Carnage.

Champion.

AT 18, O’Connor was the youngest Irishman ever to ride in a Nations Cup and by now he’s ridden in more than 40, but ask him to nominate an experience that could have prepared him for the pressure of an Olympic final and he doesn’t have to trawl his memory to find the answer. It comes instantly.

“There’s been a lot of controversy in the showjumping world over the last few months,” he says, “and I would have stated my allegiances very clearly. The current management came in just before we went to Aachen and I would have been under an awful lot of pressure to perform over there. I was going around thinking in my own mind, ‘That crowd over there are talking about me.’ But I put it all to one side. I went out and did my job.”

Aachen is the biggest course they face on the circuit and he jumped a double clear; only the reigning Olympic champion Eric Navet of France matched his feat that day. The context, though, was everything: O’Connor had publicly stated his loyalty to the old management and made known his displeasure about the circumstances surrounding their removal.

During the summer this story may have flashed across your radar, but maybe you let it pass. It might be bad manners to bring it up now, at showjumping’s great party, but there are a couple of things you should know. In February, Lt-Col Gerry Mullins stepped aside under pressure from a number of riders who wanted Eddie Macken to be appointed coach to the Nations Cup team in his place. Tommy Wade stayed on as chef d’equipe, but Wade and Macken didn’t get on and between the jigs and the reels Macken was sacked at the end of May.

The Macken loyalists in the showjumping squad were up in arms, however, and petitioned the federation furiously to re-instate him. So he returned and Wade was ousted, replaced by Col Ned Campion.

None of this was easy for O’Connor. Mullins had been his coach and mentor since he was a teenager and he felt that Wade had been good to him on the international scene. He never expressed any opposition to the new management, but he felt bound to express his support for the old one. When he has an opinion he can be blunt and he didn’t put a tooth in it when he was asked about Mullins and Wade last month.

“It’s a real red herring to point the finger at Gerry (Mullins and say, ‘We can’t have him because he helps Cian.’ The real reason they didn’t want Gerry is the same reason they didn’t want Tommy Wade. Both people speak their mind and that didn’t suit some of the people who were involved.”

Mullins is strong on discipline and O’Connor knew from the beginning that he was inclined to deliver criticism without a sugar lump to moderate the taste, but he was always strong-minded enough to take it.

At 14 O’Connor came late to riding and by the time he plucked up the courage to ask Mullins for his help two years later, he felt he had a lot of catching up to do. He wasn’t the most naturally gifted rider, but he had ability and he had vaulting ambition.

Tony O’Reilly is his godfather and years ago he told a story which captured the Olympic champion in embryo: “As a young boy of 16,” he said, “Cian came to see me and my wife Chyrss and laid out his business plans for the future . . . Two years later he was still gaining notable success as a young rider but it was on a collision course with his studies. I made a pact with him that we would encourage his career, but only if he passed his Leaving Cert.”

The deal was honoured by both parties. The first horse that O’Reilly bought for him was called Impressionist. In the space of a year, he went from hunting around Drogheda on that horse to being the highest-placed junior rider at the European Championships. The next horse was Waterford Crystal.

The minute O’Connor sat on him, he knew he was special. O’Connor says he wasn’t expensive — “You wouldn’t get a five-year-old now for what we paid for him” — but three years ago they had an offer of £2m from an American buyer. O’Reilly held firm. The plan was Athens.

The horse allowed him to compete at the top level, but O’Connor had already been a Nations Cup rider for two years before he came along.

Every rider needs the patronage of owners but the business he has been building up depends on nothing more than his hard labour. He started off with a riding school, and now he’s dealing in horses too. Many Irish riders leave these shores sooner or later, but he has no plans to do so. Life here is too good.

“I’ve a big business in Ashbourne (Co Meath. I’ve 30 horses and I’ve 30 guys riding for me full-time. I love Ireland. Riders say it’s better being away near shows. But which Dutch guy is going to sponsor an Irish rider? Very few have gone and done really well.

“I have a nice lifestyle here. I drive a nice car. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. I bet a bit. I try to go racing twice a week if I can. I got lucky with a few good ones last winter and I was able to put down a deposit on a nice car. I look after myself.”

But there has been terrible turbulence too. Two years ago, he lost his girlfriend, Hazel O’Callaghan, in a freak accident at his stables. She had been unloading a horse when she slipped and struck her head. Two weeks later, she passed away in Beaumont Hospital. “There isn’t a day goes by,” he says, “when I don’t think of her.” After the press conference on Friday night, when he named the people to whom he owed great thanks, Hazel’s parents appeared near the top of the list.

YESTERDAY morning, the immediate future was already crystalising in O’Connor’s head. As Olympic champion, he will be invited to big indoor shows over the winter, events that never would have considered him before. Before he went to bed on Friday night word had come through of an invitation to compete at the big Olympia show in London and at Spruce Meadows, Calgary, over the next couple of weeks — big shows with huge prize money.

You wouldn’t think that an Olympic champion would have a care in the world but this is it: Waterford Crystal has been in training since February and he needs the winter off, but O’Connor has no other horse good enough for these big shows. He needs a new horse. A top class horse. Ready to go. Now. He needs money. A sponsor. Now.

“There’s no point in me going to these places and making a show of myself. My horse has done enough, he needs a rest and I’ve no intention of bringing young horses to these places when they’re not up to it yet. I need new horses. I love what I’m doing and I work extremely hard at it, but I’m only interested in being at the top end of it and I want to be at the top end for as long as I can. The horse I need is out there. If I get the money I’ll find the horse.”

Would you doubt him? Ever?