Fall guys in the sport of hard knocks

It was just 21 days ago that Fitzgerald fractured a bone in his shoulder in a fall from Chalkie Run at Newbury. It was a "run-of-the-mill fall" - he's had countless worse and walked away unhurt - and the injury rates pretty low on his career's Richter scale.

He recalls a fractured coccyx of about eight years ago or the broken nose from a square-on kick from a horse, "when my nose was sprayed around my face and required several hours reconstructive surgery", as his worst moments. But his recuperative itinerary lends an insight to the jockey work ethic. From the instant of diagnosis, the question was 'How long do I have before the Hennessy?' No plaster cast was fitted and intensive physiotherapy began a mere three days later. He was trying to realise the even-money chance his specialist had priced him up as.

He failed D-day last Tuesday, when riding exercise at trainer Nicky Henderson's Lambourn yard was too painful to contemplate Saturday's Hennessy. It was a display of the line modern jockeys tread between daring and foolhardiness, professionalism and obsession.

"You have to look at the big picture, not just one big race," Fitzgerald said. "I didn't want to lose respect it had taken so long to gain by coming back when I wasn't able to do justice to the horses I would have been riding."

When Nick Dundee fell three fences from home in the Royal & SunAlliance Chase at the 1999 Cheltenham Festival, we feared the worst. Norman Williamson desperately grabbed the reins to prevent his mount doing further damage as Looks Like Trouble proceeded to the winning post alone.

In the fall, two ligaments were ripped off his near hind, bringing with them a piece of bone. But extensive surgery, followed by five months' immobilisation, resulted in recovery far better than the projected happy retirement.

Now, 20 months later, the eight-year-old is due back in action at Cork this Sunday, weather permitting, or a week later if not. Able to treat him "like a normal horse" since last August, his trainer Edward O'Grady gave a glowing report of his charge's first sighting of a fence yesterday since that fateful day in March.

"He got very excited and, from that schooling, obviously retains his great appetite for jumping," said O'Grady. "The problem with these injuries isn't so much the break itself as convincing 1100-weight of horse to rest his injured leg and not lie down."

The days following life-saving surgery were also critical for Dubai Millennium, who resented being tethered in his new box at Dalham Hall Stud. On day four, after the colt had started to refuse his feed, his attendants took a chance and untied him. He proved a model patient. "The operation to screw together the fracture in his right hind leg lasted several hours but it was the next four days when the cast came off that were most crucial," said stud director Liam O'Rourke.

"He started gentle exercise in our indoor school three weeks ago and can now manage up to half an hour, twice a day."

In modern veterinary terms, 90 per cent of lower-leg fractures in horses, such as those suffered by Nick Dundee and Dubai Millennium, are now treatable.

The former horse returns to racing as a gelding in the more time-generous sphere of jump racing. The latter, at a covering fee of £100,000 a shot, is a better bet as a stallion.

It's the modern face of the sport of hard knocks.