It’s obviously a very trivial matter in the grand scheme of things at the moment, but I broke my left ankle at Cheltenham.
The injury happened when Jarveys Plate fell at the third on the Tuesday, and my immediate thoughts were to get up, soldier on and carry on riding throughout the Festival.
It is the natural instinct of every jockey.
Get up and get on with it, and ride the next day, if humanly possible.
But I clearly had done some damage to it, so I went to Worcester hospital for X–rays that evening.
However, after waiting for two hours after those were done, the hospital got very busy, with people coming in with suspected coronavirus cases, so I discharged myself and got out there quickly, without the results.
With a young family, and a wife who works in the health service herself as a nurse, I wasn’t going to hang around in that environment.
So I decided to get physio on it, and wait for the swelling and bruising to go down. And there was plenty of that.
However, after two weeks of going down that road, and grinning and bearing it, I finally decided to ring my GP to ask him to call Worcester hospital to try and get the X-ray results.
The pain just wasn’t going away.
And when my GP secured them, he sent on the pictures to me, and it was clear there was a clean break.
And I will be going back to get the ankle X-rayed again in a private hospital at Cheltenham on Friday afternoon.
I will be back fit and healthy long before jumps racing hopefully returns, maybe on July 1, but, like I said, in the wider picture. a broken ankle is nothing.
As is the fact that there is no horse racing right now.
This is a time when we, as a country, should be in awe of our National Health Service and all those who work in it.
Stay home, and stay safe, everybody.
Paddy
