John Boylan won the first two runnings of the Irish Grand National; Sir Robert Peel (1870) & The Doe (1871).
On Wednesday, August 30 1871, John Boylan, riding the six-year-old Lisnegar, made his way down to the start of Killarney's Castlerosse Stakes. The three and a half mile race was to be run over a rather hard and gravelly course of about one mile in circuit, consisting of one wall and six banks and ditches, which finished at the beautiful lower lake of historic Innisfallen.
After an even start, the field cleared the first jump, the wall, and made its way out into the country. At the fence running parallel with the road coming from Killarney to the racecourse, Lisnegar came down and, rolling right, completely buried its jockey.
Sadly, John died within minutes (so, too, the horse, which broke its off hind leg above the hock).
John left a widow and children totally unprovided for. He also left behind his aged mother whom, for the last eighteen years, he had supported with a considerable weekly sum.
Eerily, that morning, showing a reporter around the course for a newspaper article, John had stood in front of the very fence where he was later to fall and said: 'If any fence is likely to kill a man or horse, it's this one!'
Described as a popular, deserving and respectable man, the news of his death was greatly lamented when it reached the ring.
At the end of 1871, John Boylan was the posthumous champion jockey of Ireland.
