Pulse(27)

I breathed deeply and soaked up the charged atmosphere around the parade ring. With it, all my troubles seemed to float away, at least for the time being, and I felt elated to be back in my role as a clinician.

Perhaps for the first time in eighteen months, I would have described myself as feeling reasonably happy.

Such a shame it wasn’t to last.

My world was about to change once again, and not for the better.





10


There were 120 horses running on that first day of the Festival so we could assume that, on average, there would be about ten fallers during the afternoon. The record was nineteen. And we might statistically expect a couple of broken bones among the jockeys. Thankfully, major trauma was less common but we had to be ready for anything. And we’d all had experience at some time or another of having to call in the air ambulance.

Hence, I was in my position, eager and ready with my red doctor’s bag by my side, sitting in a Land Rover at one-thirty when the famed Cheltenham Roar erupted from the enormous crowd to greet the start of the traditional Festival opener, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle Race.

There was a dirt roadway running all around the inside of the racecourse to enable vehicles to follow the action and I hung on tight to the Land Rover’s grab handles as we set off accompanied by an ambulance plus four more cars containing veterinary staff, horse catchers and a team of groundsmen with green screens. Horseracing was the only sport I knew of where the participants were actively chased by a full medical team of ambulances, vets and doctors.

In addition, other ambulances and more doctors were positioned at strategic points around the course, ready to take over if either I or the primary ambulance had to stop to attend to a fallen rider. Gone were the days of sixty or seventy years ago when a solitary fence attendant had to wave an orange flag to signal for veterinary help for a horse, or a red-and-white one to request medical assistance for the jockey, which could then have taken upwards of fifteen minutes to arrive.

‘Hang on,’ my driver instructed as we bounced along the roadway at more than thirty miles an hour. It may not have been as fast as Formula One but, on the undulating single-width track, it was exhilarating enough as we followed the field of horses up the finishing straight for the first time, past the packed grandstands and onwards left-handed.

‘Faller,’ announced the spotter over the radio as we approached the third flight of hurdles down the backstretch.

It was now my time.

I grabbed my bag and had the Land Rover door open even before the driver had pulled off the roadway onto the grass alongside the hurdle. Then I was ducking under the white running rail and sprinting across the turf towards the prostrate figure wearing the now-muddied yellow-and-blue-diamond-checked silks.

As Adrian had instructed in his briefing, I looked around for the loose horse but it had already clambered to its feet and galloped away in pursuit of the other runners.

The jockey wasn’t so much injured as angry and the presence of a female doctor clearly didn’t inhibit him in expressing it.

‘Fucking, fucking hell!’ he shouted, spitting out grass and beating the ground in front of him with his hand. ‘I was going so well, I thought I’d win. Stupid nag should learn to pick up his bloody feet.’

He rolled over, sat up and slowly rose to his feet, rubbing himself.

‘You OK?’ I asked in very non-doctoring language.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Just a slight kick in the nuts. Nothing more than a bruise.’

‘Do you want me to take a look?’ I asked.

‘Always, darling,’ he said, with a guffaw. ‘No, really, I’m OK.’

We could hear the cheering from the stands as the race approached its climax and we both turned and looked in that direction, not that we could make out the individuals involved from so far away.

‘Damn it,’ he said. ‘I should be over there winning this.’ The noise died away abruptly as the horses crossed the finish line. ‘Any chance of a lift back? I’ve got a ride in the next.’

We were at about the farthest point on the course from the weighing room. He would be hard pressed to get back in time on foot.

‘Sure,’ I said.

We hurried back to the Land Rover, with him hobbling somewhat.

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ I asked. ‘You’re limping.’

‘Old injury,’ he said. ‘I’m just back from a broken ankle that I did five weeks ago at Bangor. OK for riding but not a hundred per cent yet for running.’

‘Completely mad,’ I said, shaking my head.

He laughed. ‘It helps.’

He climbed into the back of the vehicle while I got in the front.

‘Thanks, doc,’ he said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

I wondered if he was in more pain than he was letting on. Jockeys were supreme experts at avoiding being stood down even for quite serious injuries when lesser mortals would have gladly taken weeks off work. For a jockey, not riding meant not earning, and there was no sick pay for the self-employed.

‘Don’t forget to report to the jockeys’ medical room to get clearance before you can ride again.’

‘Sure,’ he said, not opening his eyes. ‘No problem.’

All fallen riders had to ‘pass the doctor’ even if there was no apparent injury. In particular we were looking for any signs of concussion. They had to answer seven specific questions known as the ‘Turner Questions’ to test their memory function – the name or number of the horse they had just been riding, the trainer’s name, the type and length of the race, the name of the racecourse, the name of the current champion jockey, the winning horse or jockey of the previous Grand National or Cheltenham Gold Cup, and the names of two other jockeys riding at the course on that day. The aim was to test both short-and long-term memory.