IT'S unbelievable what Captain Guy Disney has achieved.
Last week at Sandown he became the first jockey with an artificial leg to ride over fences in a race in Britain. He had lost his right leg from the knee down when he had been on duty in Afghanistan in 2009.
He was riding at a meeting at Sandown that is solely for owners of horses that had been or are in the military. Guy finished third on Ballyallia Man, just over five lengths behind the winner, Cowards Close, in the Royal Artillery Gold Cup.
I was doing some rehabilitation work in the gym recently and opposite me was a young female apprentice jockey. She’d had one ride before she lost her left leg in a car accident. She had a prosthetic leg on and was trying to get on board an ‘Equicizer’, which is a mechanical horse that jockeys practice on.
She and her coach were practicing mounting and dismounting from a horse. She was laughing and joking when she couldn’t get on. She looked so happy at the fact she was able to practice it again.
With what Guy achieved, it’s brilliant. It gives people who have had limbs amputated hope of getting on board and racing horses. All the jockeys were very respectful of what Guy achieved.
When you break or fracture a bone, it’s very difficult to carry on riding, so to ride with an artificial leg takes unbelievable courage. I’m sure the young girl in the gym would have seen the race and thought, “That’s my goal, to get back racing”.
When I was doing my work in the gym, I also saw trainer Andrew Turnell, who was a good jockey between the 1960s and the 1980s. He had a minor stroke a few months back and had lost movement on one side of his body.
He told me he had been riding a showjumping horse recently. He looked delighted about it, like it had given him confidence again. He had a goal to aim for: getting back on a horse had pushed him to get fitter and returning to 100 per cent.
Something like Guy’s story makes you very proud to be a part of horse racing. But it’s all to do with our love for horses. We all started riding because we love horses. His achievement shows that Guy loves the animal. The majority of the time, people want to get back on a horse to ride it, not just to ride a winner.
To ride as a professional jockey, there are rules prohibiting riding with artificial limbs or even an artificial finger on safety grounds. I think prosthetics have improved so much it’s time that this was looked at.
Guy proved he could ride around Sandown, one of the trickiest jumps tracks, with an artificial leg.
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