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 Valerya |
 # 11 ≡ Deces Patt Eddery |
Groupe I
2757 posts depuis
le 5/7/2008
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Lu un éditorial sensible et intelligent ce jour sur Racinguk.
Pour l'avoir côtoyé, j'ai pu constater avec tristesse cette addiction qui lui a gâché puis ôté la vie.
Espérons qu'il repose en paix maintenant. De tout coeur avec ses proches.
Editor's Blog
Racing could not do enough to help set Eddery free
12 November 2015
One summer when I had just left school I happened to play George Best in a game of pool in a Chelsea pub.
He had dominated the table for several games and as the pound coins on the side of the green baize whittled down to mine I hoped intensely he would not get beaten so I could take him on.
By the time it was my turn, Best had drunk several drinks and was double parked throughout our match. To my teenage delight, I won.
Only a few years after that encounter Best allowed to be published a haunting image of him in a national newspaper. In an effort to warn people of the dangers of alcoholism he was shown as frail and with tubes coming out of his body on what proved to be his deathbed.
A few days later Best left that withered mortal coil behind to join the football legends in the sky aged 59.
On Tuesday when the news broke that Pat Eddery had died aged just four years his elder I immediately thought of Best.
Where Best was famously a drunk, for the more introverted Eddery his alcoholism was the elephant in the room in his obituaries as, quite rightly, his legions of fans including many of the journalists who wrote them, paid tribute to one of the best jockeys Britain or Ireland has ever produced.
Alongside the focus on how he bumped along in the saddle in his unconventional manner, his ability to get the best out of his horse and his gentlemanly nature there were other aspects that skirted around his dark secret.
Eddery was shy. He hid from his brother Michael for 20 years that it was he who had signed the hospital consent form that resulted in the amputation of his brother’s leg following a horror fall in 1972.
In an interview on Racing UK Willie Carson, his long-standing rival and friend, talked about how Eddery was a lost soul after retiring from the saddle. Carson tried to get him into breeding, and although Eddery saddled a Group One winner in 2009 as a trainer, in 2015 his stable sent out just one winner. Carson added that Eddery was quiet and shunned the limelight of the media. As it turned out, Eddery was just too quiet.
His daughter Natasha has now laid bare his private battle with, as she put it, ‘his demon drink,’ revealing that she had not seen her father for five years due to his addiction.
Racing prides itself on its support network, both unofficially and through charities like Racing Welfare. Eddery never once called the Newmarket-based helpline.
Eddery is clearly not the last high-profile sportsman who will struggle to deal with the minutiae of everyday life following a hugely successful career. These are not new issues, but his death from a heart attack only highlights that they certainly need tackling better.
According to Racing Welfare just over 10 per cent of their contacts with people within racing since January have been from people seeking help for mental and addiction problems.
And the charity will soon release even greater means of being able to try to provide support for those who need it most. Next month those in racing will be able to live chat with Racing Welfare online through their mobiles and tablets 24hrs a day, removing the need to actually have to speak to somebody in person.
It is a noble addition to their offering, but rare is the inmate who walks through their own prison door without having opened it themselves. It appears racing never could quite do enough to help set Eddery free from his dark cell, and we are all the poorer for losing another supremely gifted sportsman so early.
"Visez la lune, même si vous échouez vous serez parmi les étoiles." Oscar Wilde |
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| 12.11.15 - 20:06 |
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Deces Patt Eddery
