Jerry Hannon

This years Galway Festival will be something of a dream come true for me as I take over as racecourse commentator from my inspiration, Dessie Scahill.

I grew up in Listowel and went out to ‘the island’ for the races ever since I was a young lad. I used to go with my Dad or cycle out on my bike but as a family we had no background in racing. Dad was a carpenter and we didn’t have a garden so it wasn’t that I grew up around horses, but I remember going to the races at Listowel and being amazed by how one voice, Dessie’s voice, could just draw the crowd in. That is probably when I realised what I wanted to do.

Liam Healy of Healy Photographer’s just lived around the corner from us and Liam would ring my father, Joe, if there was ever a shelf needed to be put up or any job to be done and once I walked into Healy’s for the first time I hardly ever left it! If anyone ever called around to the house to see if Jerry was home I was probably in Healy’s!

When I left school after my Leaving Cert I went straight to work with Liam Healy senior and never did a third level education. Pat Healy took a year out and went to Australia and I manned the office and then Liam showed me how to use the camera and I remember him telling me I had a great eye for a photograph.

I went off to the races with Liam then, I’d be his bagman and then I’d start to cover a few point-to-points for him and Liam even thought me how to drive and got me a van with Healy Racing on the side of it! He was a great help to me.

I used to have a few party pieces of racecourse commentaries and I remember when I started doing them in public first I’d have to hide behind the door when I was doing it as I couldn’t look at people!

Micheál O’Hehir’s commentary of Foinavon’s win in the 1967 Grand National would be one of them. I remember when Micheál passed away the Racing Post carried an insert of that commentary and I learned that off.

Liz Horgan, who would have been heavily involved in Athea pony racing and she had heard the party piece and asked me would I commentate at the pony racing in Athea. Chris Hayes was riding that day, Nina Carberry was around at the time, Davy Condon and Billy Lee were all riding in the pony racing then.

I was only 18 at the time and got a few more days pony racing but shortly afterwards I started calling point-to-points and I was still taking the odd picture for Healy’s as well. Liam’s grandson, Kevin, who is a regular on the racecourse now, would have come racing with me when I’d be doing the commentaries and if the last fence was too far away I would take the picture in the parade ring while Kevin covered the last fence.

Then in May 2000 I was up in Downpatrick with Pat Healy taking photographs at their two-day meeting and we stayed over and I did my party piece that night after a few drinks in Denvers of Downpatrick town. In the bar that night were the Polly family, who have an affinity with Downpatrick, and were sponsoring the Willie Polly Memorial Handicap Hurdle the following day and Brian Polly asked me if I’d like to do the commentary of their race if it was okay with Iain Duff, the racecourse manager at the time, and Neville Ring, the in-house commentator at that time. So I said of course I’d love to do it and we got the all clear and Neville asked me to do a chase on the same card so I did and that was the start of my racecourse commentating.

I remember Barry Cash won the hurdle race on Shereevagh for Tom McCourt and Ruby Walsh won the chase on Sir Williamwallace for his father, Ted. Downpatrick didn’t race again until August and Neville Ring stood down and asked me to take over.

September of the same year Dessie kindly asked me to call two races at Listowel at the Harvest Festival and that was special. Any commentaries I had prior to that were away from home so to call races at Listowel in front of my family was special. It all happened very quickly once I got going from the pony racing in October 1999.

Everyone knows that Dessie was my inspiration but the soundest piece of advice I ever got was from Pat Keane of the Irish Examiner. Pat told me one day to “Keep it simple and leave the editorial to us and no hysterics” and I’ll never forget Pat for that.

And my late father Joe was a huge influence on me and I’ll never forget when he told me to treat every race as the Grand National or the Derby and that is what I do. I don’t get complacent or take the so called smaller meetings for granted.

Almanzor winning the Champion Stakes at Leopardstown was probably my favourite call so far, but I’ve actually never called an Irish Classic or the Irish Grand National. The St Leger will be my first Irish Classic this September and I’ll look forward to my first Irish Grand National next Easter Monday.

In fact, ironically Laytown was the last racecourse in Ireland that I visited when I was travelling with Liam Healy and it is still the only racecourse I haven’t commentated at so I’ll get to complete the set this year in September.

There’s certainly a look to look forward to over the coming weeks, months and years, that is for sure.