Alan Merrigan

1964 - 1994

Alan Tyrone Anthony Merrigan was born in Arklow, Co Wicklow, on 8 March 1964.  

He was a talented National Hunt jockey, but one whose career was plagued by bad luck.

Injuries are part of a jump jockey's life, and those who can't accept that soon quit the game. But Alan, who at 6ft 1in was exceptionally tall for a jockey, suffered more than most. He never really had a sustained chance to show off his abilities, so frequent were the injuries he picked up. This can be illustrated by looking at his career in 1990. He suffered a badly broken pelvis in a fall at Carlisle in April of that year on the Arthur Stephenson-trained Bonnie Artist. A metal framework had to be fitted around his pelvis. More cruelly, it was his first ride after two months' convalescence from a depressed skull fracture.

Alan was none the less an able pilot and as second jockey to Arthur Stephenson rode some of Stephenson's best horses, including Blazing Walker and Southern Minstrel, winning both the West of Scotland Pattern Chase and Timeform Chase on the latter in 1989.

Alan had 28 winners in his best season, 1988- 89, and a career total of 95.

Alan was an accomplished horseman thanks to the help of his father, a dealer in show-jumping horses. He arrived in England aged 19 and was turned down by several trainers before the revered Stephenson offered him a job. His first big win for Stephenson came on Newlife Connection at the Liverpool Grand National meeting in 1987. He also won two big races at Wetherby in 1989, the Charlie Hall Chase and Rowland Meyrick Chase, both on the Grand National stalwart Durham Edition.

It was while working for Stephenson that Alan met his wife Clare (Livingstone), who worked as a secretary at the Crawleas stable.

Alan Merrigan died in the early hours of 25 July, 1994, when the car he was travelling in left the quayside at Seahouses, in Northumberland, and plunged into the water. His friend and colleague Ridley Lamb died in the same accident.

Update:

Alan Merrigan was buried on August 1, 1994, at St Michael's Church in the Cumbrian village of Brough, where he had married his childhood sweetheart, Clare Livingstone, in 1988.

The Rev Richard Haigh said: ' Alan was someone who made a deep impression on many whose lives he has touched. There was a quiet strength about him. He was gentle and humble and those finer qualities enriched many of the lives of people who are here today.'

Trainer Nancy Stephenson, who launched Alan's career said: 'He was a very quiet boy and quiet with the horses, and he could ride a lot of horses that others could not.'

Alan, who lived with his wife at Stainton, Bernard Castle, had no children.