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By Betsy Burke Parker

Paddy Young doesn’t remember much about the racing fall that could have taken his life four years ago almost to the day, but he has little mental snapshots from the 2017 Radnor meet.

Wife Leslie says it seems sometimes like he can conjure memories of running down to, up and over the 16th fence in the timber stake that took him from the edge of breaking 200 sanctioned wins to breaking his neck.

Other days, there's no recall at all.

"That's the new normal," says the Unionville, Pennsylvania-based trainer. "It's where we are right now. We were a team then, we're a team now, but it's all different.

"It's been a long, hard road," Leslie adds, stressing that the steeplechase community - friends, family, even strangers - showed their true colors in the weeks, months and years since the traumatic brain injury that took Paddy Young from five-time champion to practically helpless. He was in the hospital for months, in therapy for years and even now requires help and supervision because his decision-making process remains compromised.

Just a few weeks ago, Paddy went out for a walk, got lost and caused an hours-long manhunt before he was discovered strolling along a quiet Chester County back road.

Leslie, his kids and their farm life provide the stable touchstones that give him a reference point. "We're all in this together," she says.

Trace the winding paths of Paddy and Leslie Young to find out how he "decided to try - on a flyer" the American steeplechase circuit 18 years ago - and how he just never left, and how she "just could not resist" jumping back in to the jump game after college.

Born the son of farmer and permit-holder Leo Young, Paddy Young, 45, was groomed early for a career in the saddle. (Tod Marks photo, left) There were good horses to ride and thousands of open acres to explore around the family farm in Banbridge, County Down, southwest of Belfast in Northern Ireland.

“My biggest influence in my career was my dad, as I admired his horsemanship and he got me started in racing,” Young told an Irish racing paper. English trainer “Henrietta Knight helped me lots schooling a lot of her horses. Mick Fitzgerald was my idol.”

Though he could have gone into hunting or show jumping, Paddy took his dad’s lead, riding family horses as an amateur. He moved to Nicky Henderson’s in Lambourn, England, then spent five formative years with Knight in Oxfordshire near Wantage.

There, he schooled hundreds, maybe thousands, of horses, including future Cheltenham Gold Cup star Best Mate. His brother, Jeremy, ended up in England, too, assistant to trainer Paul Nicholls before setting up his own yard in Somerset.

Young first decided to try a foray on the American circuit on a whim, saying he was "a muppet when I came here" in 2003. He told This Is Horse Racing's Sean Clancy that "if I never came here? I'd probably be riding hunters, maybe schooling bumpers, pair of welly boots on, with no hat cover, plodding around the fields, riding leg long, whatever. It was the best move I ever made."

He landed at Jack Fisher's barn in Maryland and never looked back.

“When I first come over, it was to have some fun, ride as an amateur, maybe ride the Hunt Cup and call it quits, that was it,” Young told This Is Horse Racing. “Being champion jockey or anything like that was never there. I kept falling into good rides, it built more on luck than anything.

“Being in the right place and things opened. I owe Jack a lot, nobody else would have given me the opportunity he gave me, he gave a kid a chance.” (Tod Marks photo, left)

Young’s career took off; he rode for the sport’s leading lights – Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard, Sanna Neilson, Neil Morris, Doug Fout, wife Leslie and dozens of others that eventually led to five rider titles.

With a notably quiet manner with people as well as horses, Paddy became a popular fixture on the American jump scene, a skillful, soft-spoken rider. He seemed shy until he got to know you, friends say, but, eventually, the Irish craic would emerge. “He was always very witty, with a great sense of humor,” recalls Brian Crowley, who rode the American circuit for several seasons and became one of Paddy’s best friends in and out of season. “He was rarely in a bad (mood.) He was always positive.”

Paddy Young racked up five National Steeplechase Association rider titles - 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2015. He was second twice. He was, in the words of fellow rider Willie McCarthy, "simply the best."

Leslie, 48, was raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania. (Tod Marks photo, left) Father Dominick Falini and mother Peggy were both school teachers – her mother taught phys ed, her dad taught U.S. history. Both were avid riders, hunting with the old Brandywine Hounds (disbanded in 2003). Dominick rode in point-to-points, and both Falinis supported young Leslie’s pony club, foxhunting and pony racing aspirations.

With the Cheshire Pony Club, Leslie won the Eastern Pennsylvania Region eventing rally – teaming with C3 contemporaries Braxton Jones and Catherine Fisher for team gold. She excelled at pony club games, and was nationally ranked in girls tetrathlon.

On the DelMarVa pony race circuit, she was “all out for blood” competing against the likes of Billy Meister, Ricky Hendriks and more. She was competitive and won with ponies small and large, claiming year-end titles with standout stars Winky, Phantom, Taboo and Jay.

She amped it up, working high school summers for Hall of Fame neighbor Jonathan Sheppard, and galloped for Jack Fisher – newly inducted into the Hall of Fame – on weekends while she was a student at Oldfields.

Horses weren’t her only passion – Leslie excelled at lacrosse and field hockey, making All-Stars and All-American for both. And she figured she’d left the horse world behind, Leslie recalls, graduating Virginia’s Lynchburg College in 1995 with a degree in health science and athletic training. She worked in physical therapy clinic outside Philly and coached the Cardinal O’Hara girls lacrosse team to a championship season.

Horses weren’t part of the picture.  

“So, I’m thinking horses are history, but then I went to the Brandywine Point-to-Point, and the party after, and realized how much I missed it,” Leslie says with a laugh. “I thought, ‘ugh'."

She got a job galloping for Sheppard, lived in the infamous 704 house, and dated then married jockey Roger Horgan in 2000. Leslie coached field hockey at Oldfields while Horgan worked for Tom Voss, and she got certified in equine massage, at last tying her degree to the horse world.

They based at Gulfstream Park with Sheppard in the winters, and Horgan worked for flat trainer Kenny McPeek.

“In all fairness, we got along great, but, God, you know that gypsy lifestyle is hard,” Leslie says of their breakup a few years later, something she reflects, today, was inevitable. “We just had different ideas.”

Leslie returned to Pennsylvania, "not really sure what" she'd do next. She became friends with Paddy Young, an Irish jump rider who'd joined the U.S. jockey colony in 2003. The match was great, their worlds and their personalities meshed, and the rest is history.

They married in 2007, the same year Leslie unexpectedly launched her training career. Son Rory was born in 2008, daughter Cece in 2009. Paddy’s older son, Tom, also moved to the U.S. (photo of the Young family courtesy of Leslie Young)

Like so many things, the giant step from gallop girl to trainer began from a backstretch conversation. They were at Keeneland for the Royal Chase in April, 2007 (Paddy was sixth on Chivite for owner Calvin Houghland and trainer Bruce Miller.) Leslie ran into an old friend, Silverton Hill trainer Darrin Miller, on the backside. “He said he had a horse for me, out of conditions on the flat but he thought would go jumping.”

She fasttracked her trainers’ license and saddled her first runner – and winner, at Saratoga that summer. Silverton’s Torlundy was her first stakes starter – and winner, in 2009, and the stats piled up from there. (Tod Marks photo of Torlundy and Paddy Young finishing second in the 2009 Appleton Hurdle Stakes at Far Hills)

She and Paddy made a great team, she says, naturally working towards common goals – trainer and rider, wife and husband, mother and father. “It was great,” Leslie says.  

Until one day it wasn’t.

The steeplechase world circled the wagons, sending a powerful message to the Youngs.

“It was very humbling,” Leslie says. “We found out exactly who our real friends were. To see how many people care . . . I don’t think he realized that many people did.”

With hard work and determination that surprised no one, the champ began to pull through, began to improve. Doctors returned the piece of skull to his head, and physical, speech and occupational specialists put him through sometimes painful therapy to regain coordination and strength. Much of his brain function returned – though not all of his cognitive judgment did. After months in rehab, Paddy was able to return home and a new normal.

He can’t drive, can’t ride, and he has to be super careful around the horses. Sometimes the champ gets confused and frustrated. But, more often, he’s just happy and sort of quiet. He likes to walk, and loves being in the barn.

“I’m really happy,” echoes Paddy, a little weak-voiced and slightly slurred. “I’m doing my best. Doing my best.” He repeats himself often, not really realizing it becomes sort of a sing-song refrain. The three words sound like a sacred mantra.

“The horse fell over. I got kicked in the head.” He uses the most simple language to answer “what happened” to the horse in the timber stake that day because that’s what traumatic brain injury does. Paddy knows what happened, maybe deep down he even understands the implications of all that’s transpired since, but he finds it impossible to articulate. Doctors liken his communication level to that of a 4-year-old. Who knows, Leslie maintains, because sometimes he’s simple yet clear and concise. Other times it goes south, Paddy spiraling frustrated, petulant and sullen.

When the clouds pass, he expresses gratitude for the gift of the present. “I’m here now. I’m here to talk about it,” Paddy says, clipped sentences brushing aside the past for what’s in front of him in the moment.

As for the future, Paddy thinks in days, not of a more grand scheme. Saturday, he’ll lead up – with help – maiden Cause For Pardon for Leslie to saddle in the first. “Paddy’s our good luck charm,” Leslie says, explaining that the Ballybristol runner won on the turf at Warrenton point-to-point in March with the champ on the shank. “We don’t want to break the spell.”

“I’ll do my best. Do my best,” Paddy refrains.

Talk turns to his children, and his voice becomes stronger. This is familiar territory. Oldest son Tom is in pre-vet at Auburn University. Youngest son Rory rides the pony race at Sunday’s Potomac point-to-point, and dad’s proud of both.

“Rory is a great rider,” he says. “His hands are great. He’s a real stylist.”

Leslie gives a little snort and begins to protest.

“Wait, no. No. No, he’s not,” Paddy self-corrects the embellishment of the level of Rory’s polish in the tack. “Not a stylist. Not a stylist. But he’s very relaxed on a horse.

“I get excited.”

“It (brings) back some great memories reflecting on Paddy. We’d bonded very well,” says former jump rider Brian Crowley. (Tod Marks photo) Crowley has long since retired and returned to their native Ireland where he now works as the stallion man at Glenview Stud in County Cork, Ireland.

But he has nothing but fond memories of the friendship and kinship they formed during their time on the jump scene here.

Crowley finished second to Paddy in the 2011 rider standings.

“Paddy was a little shy until he got to know you,” Crowley recalls. “He's one that would keep talking when the conversation was finished not wanting that awkward silence. I use give him stick about it.

“He’s very witty, with a great sense of humor, and rarely in a bad (mood.) He was always positive. He was actually the one (that) helped get me rides in my early days in the U.S. when no one even heard of me over there.”

Crowley says Paddy Young’s repeated successes were no surprise to the rider colony. “He read a horse, and a race, very well and if I was behind him, I knew I was in the right spot (because he was) always in the right place during a race.

“He was excellent over a jump, his body and hands so quiet.

“It was devasating news when I got the call on Sunday morning after Radnor. I couldn't believe it, and for days, it was touch and go whether Paddy would even survive.

“Leslie has done a fantastic job juggling Paddy, the kids and the business. I was delighted they both made it to my wedding in 2019 here in Ireland.

“He was most definitely the hardest working jock I know even to this day.”

The 2014 NSA champion rider, Willie McCarthy is now based in Australia, but he remembers Paddy Young as one of the true greats of the game. (Tod Marks photo)

“I rate Paddy as one of the best jump's riders globally, not just in the U.S.," McCarthy says. “He had everything a brilliant rider should have – perfect hands, could eye a stride from a mile out and always rode the shortest route in a race.

“But, most of all, he had a coolness that was personified. This is what made him the best. He loved his horses as a rider and still does.

“People have short memories in this game. He is the best champion the U.S will ever see.”

McCarthy insists he doesn’t need recognition for triggering the GoFundMe account. “I was happy to help a friend and a family in need at the time. God bless them.”

“I’ve known Leslie for 38 years,” Patrick Worrall says the two grew up pony racing together. “We’d been talking about getting a (steeplechase) horse for a long time, and she hooked me with her love of Einstein progeny.” When Leslie identified Mr. Haire as a timber prospect, Worrall says he was powerless to resist the urge. “I’m a steeplechasing addict and could not say no.” (Douglas Lees photo of a young Patrick Worrall)

Worrall has known John Greene for 42 years since they were in elementary school carpool together.

“When I was training, he’d voiced some interest in getting into the game. (So) when Leslie approached me, I approached John to come in for half.

“Now he has joined me in spending our children’s inheritance on steeplechase horses.”

Worrall recalls when Paddy Young moved to Butler, Maryland. “He lived near Charlie Fenwick’s barn, where I was riding out, and we became friends. I moved away. Paddy became champion jockey and married my good friend.  

“What can I say, small world.”

The 1987 champion rider, money won, Gregg Morris traded his riding career for work as a physician assistant in a big city emergency room. He teamed with Vanderbilt University Hospital surgeon Dr. Craig Ferrell to create, and refine, the “baseline concussion test” that NSA employs for riders. (Tod Marks photo)

“I will say that although Dr. Ed Dickinson’s response and treatment at the time of Paddy’s fall was exemplary, the severity of Paddy’s injury caused us to reevaluate the emergency medical protocols at all our race meets,” Morris says of the 2017 incident. “The result was the Guidelines document we developed in collaboration with the SJAA and the NSA safety committee.

“The fundamental precept of the Guidelines is the 30-second rule — that any rider who falls anywhere on a course should be seen by a medical provider (EMT, physician, PA or NP) within 30 seconds. We don’t always hit that metric, but most meets are coming pretty close,” which is going a long way, Morris adds, to protecting human athletes in the jump game as well as the equine athletes.

The National Steeplechase Association and Steeplechase Jockeys Association of America have been working together to improve the recognition and evaluation of concussions in jockeys, says sports medicine physician and SJAA board member Dr. Erica Gaertner. “We use the IMPACT test as a baseline and as a return-to-ride tool after a jockey has been diagnosed with a concussion.

“Since Paddy had his fall (in May, 2017), we have implemented a new medical protocol to reach the jockeys and assess them in a timely manner.

“In addition, we’ve been updating our race day evaluation protocol that mirrors those used by other professional sports as sideline assessments including the NFL.”

SJAA created a database with rider information and prior injury reports in one spot. This is helpful to course doctors on race day, Gaertner says, as they have record of past falls.

“The SJAA is hoping that we can get this to be used as a standard by the NSA. (We’re) keeping up to date on the latest concussion research and adjusting our protocols accordingly. The riders are also starting to understand the significance of a concussion, which is a big step in the right direction.”