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A YOUNG jockey has told how she was inspired by a late Killaloe girl with special needs to resume riding in her memorial race, a few months after receiving her own Epilepsy diagnosis. Ali O’Brien (14) Tullaheady, Nenagh, was thrilled to win the Brianna Lynch Memorial Cup at the North Tipperary Foxhounds Point-to-Point at Lisboney, Nenagh recently. In November 2019, Brianna Lynch (9) died in her sleep from SUDEP – Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy – leaving her family devastated. Her mother, Arabella Scanlan, a well-known Killaloe horse trainer, provided Ali with one of her horses, Bridget, to ride in the memorial race for her daughter, a few weeks after the teenager had decided to get back on a horse following her own Epilepsy diagnosis in December 2021. Ali didn’t want to go back riding in December and January in the wake of her Epilepsy diagnosis. When her medication wasn’t working, Ali often wondered was this how Brianna, who was …
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