Leading jockey Daryl Jacob has opened up on the loss of a horse he was riding at Lingfield earlier this week.
The Cheltenham Festival-winning rider said the fall of Eau Top, just yards from the finish, was an "awful experience."
The 20-1 shot was making rapid headway around a furlong from the finish in a jumpers' bumper, when he came down.
Jacob was thrown from the saddle and was heartbroken that his mount's injury was unsurvivable.
He wrote in his Sporting Life column : "My commiserations go out to Ben Pauling, his team and the connections of Eau Top who lost his life when he fell with me at Lingfield on Tuesday.
"The race was going OK. I just got outpaced four-and-a-half furlongs out but the horse really found his stride from the two pole and was running on strongly to the line.
"Then about three strides from the finish he tragically broke his leg. He went down onto the floor and me with him.
"It was a high-speed fall at the end of a jumpers bumper and an awful experience.
"I’m still a bit battered and bruised but the gods were looking down on me.
"I know how lucky I am to have escaped very serious injuries in the incident."
Jacob was well enough to compete the following day and made the long trip to Carlisle for two rides.
One was for Eau Top's trainer Ben Pauling, who said it was a "very sad day" losing the seven-year-old gelding.
A few weeks earlier, on January 18, jockey Jerry McGrath was injured in another incident at Lingfield.
He was one of three jockeys to fall on the home bend – and was taken to hospital with a broken hip and shoulder.
A stewards enquiry looking into what happened was adjourned and it was held at Fontwell's meeting yesterday.
"The interference was found to be accidental as all riders were riding tight into the bend, resulting in Vegas Blue (McGrath's horse) clipping the heels of Isayalittleprayer and subsequently falling, causing Perfect Percy, ridden by Jordan Nailor to fall and Alexander Thorne, the rider of Lord Howard, to be unseated," the report read.
