NO PLACE FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED

There is the glory side to race-riding ... success, wealth, celebrity status. Then there is the down side, when a horse crashes to the ground and the rider hasn’t even got a split second to offer up a prayer for a safe landing.

The worst looking fall can often see the jockey emerge unscathed. The most innocuous looking incident can leave a jockey paralysed or with severe head injuries. Death is not out of the equation.

A saving grace is that nobody is forced to be in harm’s way. Those who take up the career of a jockey choose to be there, understand the danger and thus they normally show great character in accepting the good with the bad, as is racing’s way.

But when a series of falls come in a rush, as they have since last Wednesday, it provokes a sober reflection of the risks involved.

At Rosehill last Wednesday, four horses fell in two separate incidents sending jockeys, Kathy O’Hara, Peter Robl, Blake Shinn and Jeff Lloyd flying into the arms of the Gods.

On Thursday at Ipswich, apprentice jockey Steve Wright hit the ground hard when Regal Mountain fell just some 200m after the start and then, on Monday, apprentice jockey Laughlan Fyfe suffered a similar fall when his mount Mealtime snapped a leg in the final trial at Hawksbury.

There were different outcomes for the different jockeys, the six falls provided an unwelcome offering from the wide range of injuries that can await a rider involved in a fall.

Kathy O’Hara thankfully emerged from her fall with only a sore left shoulder. O’Hara has subsequently resumed riding. Blake Shinn injured his wrist.

Jeff Lloyd suffered severe concussion, so he was not aware of how fortunate he was at the time.

Trainer David Payne put Lloyd’s position in context as he came back after checking on his fallen rider, “Jeff is badly concussed, he's in another world at the moment,” Payne said.

“I had a look at his skull cap and there is a massive crack down the centre where a horse's hoof must have struck it. The skull cap has saved his life. I'd say he would have been dead without it.”

Lloyd, who is sporting a black eye, cuts to his face and a swollen hand, is hoping to resume riding on Boxing Day.

Peter Robl suffered a fractured vertebra in his neck. He is expected to be out of the saddle for up to eight weeks.

The Patinack retained jockey had several anxious moments on the turf, where he lay fearing the worst.

“I honestly thought I was gone,” Robl said. “When I first hit the deck I couldn't feel my arms or legs. I had pins and needles all the way through my body. It felt like I was lying on the track for hours and hours - it was scary.”

“I thought I was f---ed,” he said. “As you get the sensation back in your arms and your legs you think, ‘Thank f--- for that’,” he said.

Given the possible alternative, a fractured vertebra was a happy ending.

For Steve Wright, the fall at Ipswich on Thursday was a case of lightning striking twice in the same place.

In 2003 Wright suffered a fall at Goondiwindi which left him stricken with severe brain trauma which kept him in hospital under neurological care for many months.

After a long period of convalescence and rehabilitation, Wright was given the green light to return to race-riding. On Thursday, another fall cut him down again.

Wright’s injuries include two fractured vertebra, two fractured ribs, a fractured sternum, black eyes and missing teeth. Wright is currently in the high dependency trauma unit of the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

There is no thought of how long he will be out of action, or whether he will ever return to the track. The only focus is on his recovery.

On top of all these racing incidents, getting the news of Laughlan Fyfe coming to grief in a fall in a trial at Hawksbury on Monday was equally as shocking.

Fyfe was knocked unconscious when his mount fell and rolled over him. He was rushed to Nepean Hospital where doctors have placed him in an induced coma. It has been reported that scans did not reveal any brain injuries. Fyfe’s condition is still listed as ‘serious.’

So the word ‘fall’ can have a whole range of consequences and those consequences can have a dramatic impact the lives of the riders involved(and their families).

In a meeting (on Friday) which was arranged prior to these unfortunate series of incidents, the Australian Racing Board agreed to establish a national scheme by July 2009, which would be set up to help fund personal insurance and compulsory public liability premiums for the country’s 860 jockeys.

The Australian Jockey’s Association has pushed for one percent of prize-money to be directed into the scheme, which is expected to equate to about $3.7 million annually.

For all that though, race-riding remains the domain of a special type of sportsman.

Peter Robl, his movements restricted by a neck brace, perhaps spoke for all of his fallen colleagues when he said, “"I'd do the same thing 100 times. It's all part-and-parcel of racing.

"What do they say? Go hard or go home. You're racing very tight - there's only centimetres in it at times and you're out there to win. It's a very competitive sport and you're going to have casualties along the way."

The track, in the heat of battle, is clearly no place for the faint-hearted.

**Jockey Ben Looker was the latest to add his name to the list of jockeys injured in falls in the last seven days. Looker broke his collar-bone in a fall at Port Macquarie on Monday.