Woman who 'wanted to be professional jockey' before car crash settles High Court action
By Ann O'Loughlin
A woman who claimed her dream of becoming a professional jockey was dashed when she injured her back in a car crash has settled her High Court action.
The settlement came this evening after the second day of the hearing before Ms Justice Bronagh O'Hanlon.
Shirley McCarthy had told the High Court she can’t stand longer than five minutes because of the back pain which she claims she has suffered since the 2009 road crash.
“I just wanted to be a professional jockey. I lived for racing, that was it,” she said.
The court heard Ms McCarthy who worked in a horse trainer's yard before the crash claimed she had not worked with horses since 2012.
However, in cross-examination, she admitted to the court she had ridden some older horses in the trainers' yard since the accident and another horse about five times last year and had galloped on the beach just last week.
In court today before the settlement was agreed a video was shown taken by a private investigator of horses being warmed up and then ridden out of a trainer's yard in Wexford in March 2013.
Put to her by Jeremy Maher SC for the defendant she was one of the riders on the third horse out and that was her face in the video, Ms McCarthy said she could not say it was her.
In another video from October 2013, Ms McCarthy agreed it was her coming from a shop in Co Wexford wearing a white top. When she was shown footage of a person in a white top on a horse in a green field from earlier that morning she said: "it could be anybody, anywhere."
Shirley McCarthy, Kyle Meadows, Oulart, Co Wexford has sued Edward Matthews, Moneyhere, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford as a result of the accident on the Enniscorthy Oulart Road on December 20, 2009.
It was claimed Mr Matthews' car came around a bed on the wrong side of the road and crashed into Ms McCarthy's car in a head-on collision.
Ms Justice O’Hanlon was told liability was admitted in the case which was before the court for assessment of damages only.
Ms McCarthy fractured her thoracic vertebra and suffered soft tissue injuries to her neck and right arm and says she still suffers from severe lower back pain.
