The selling hurdle will be the most significant race on the card at Southwell on Sunday afternoon when the jockey Brian Toomey takes his first ride in public since a fall two years ago which almost cost him his life. Toomey suffered life-threatening head injuries in a fall from Solway Dandy in a handicap hurdle at Perth on 4 July 2013. Part of his skull was removed to reduce swelling on his brain and he spent a fortnight in an induced coma and more than six months in hospital.
Toomey has been riding out regularly for several months and successfully applied to the British Horseracing Authority for a new jockey’s licence last month. He will ride Kings Grey in the 4.20 race at Southwell, with both the horse and contest having been carefully chosen by Philip Kirby, Kings Grey’s trainer, to maximise the chance that Toomey will return with a winner.
“The race on Sunday has been my focus for the past two years,” Toomey said this week. “I could have taken the career-ending insurance available to me but all I wanted to do was be a jockey. It’s my passion, it’s an addiction and it’s been my dream since I was a boy to be a jockey. It’s a job and a life I love.
“I can’t begin to list the people I want to thankbut I want to go out on Sunday and put in a good performance for them and of course my family.”
Toomey’s recovery to ride again has been extraordinary, but he neither expected nor received any special treatment from the British Horseracing Authority when he reapplied for his licence.
“For the purposes of Brian’s application we treated him in the same manner that we would any other rider,” Jerry Hill, the BHA’s chief medical advisor, says. “In terms of that the bar was set at the same level we expect of all professional jockeys. No allowances were made for his injuries and the length of his absence from the sport, which makes all the more remarkable the scale of his recovery.
“The fact that Brian is still alive is a testament to the first class medical care which exists on British racecourses. It is very likely that the team of doctors at Perth, with their rapid and decisive response, saved Brian’s life. To now be returning to ride again in Britain two years on, and having met all of the demanding criteria required of him to do so, is a quite remarkable story and an illustration of his determination and bravery.” **cut to here**
Kings Grey is a useful chaser but is qualified to run in Sunday’s contest because he has yet to win over hurdles. He will set off as the hot odds-on favourite, but whatever the outcome, Toomey himself will have defied extraordinary odds as soon as horse and rider set off towards the first flight.
