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'Being a jockey is not a job. It's a way of life'
'...but it's Cygnet jumping well again...Strumbles Head in second...and there, Tri Nations has gone and Aggravation brought down...Tri Nations a faller and Aggravation brought down, so we loose two at the first flight in the back straight and both jockeys are still on the floor...'
With these words, the racecourse commentator unwittingly brought to a premature end the career of promising jockey, Jimmy Derham.
The date was Wednesday 7 September 2011. The race was the A. J. Wood Plant Handicap Hurdle at Uttoxeter.
Tri Nations, on which Jimmy had already won twice, was his second ride of the day. In an earlier race he had finished runner-up on Marc Aurele to Sam Twiston Davies on Horseshoe Reef.
Jimmy, second right, blue, white epaulettes, on Tri Nations at Uttoxeter
Speaking about the accident later, Jimmy said: 'I remember coming round the bend at Uttoxeter, saw a stride for the hurdle and gave him a squeeze. At the last minute, though, another horse came across me slightly but the horse jumped anyway – he was committed. He hit the top and came down, and we brought Jamie Moore's horse down as well.
'The other horse landed on top of me, so I took the brunt of two falls. I got up, answered all the questions the doctor asked; I was always conscious, never knocked out.'
Initial relief turned to horror as, later, the full extent of Jimmy's injuries hit him
'I couldn't see, my eyes were spinning and I felt sick. I had a bad headache. I went from Uttoxeter to Stratford Hospital. My CT scan was clear and they sent me home after two days.
(left) Jimmy winning on Cold Mountain at Taunton, 29 March, 2011'A couple of days later I developed a lisp – my tongue was partially paralysed through nerve damage. My girlfriend, Kate, boarded up all the windows of our house because the sunlight was too bright for my eyes.
'A week later I went for another CT. The doctor took one look at me and told me not to move. He put a surgical collar on me and told me that I wasn't going home.Then I had an MRI scan after which the doctor asked me how I'd got to the hospital. I said I drove and he said: 'if you'd hit a pothole on the way you could have been dead. You've been walking a tightrope for 12 days.'
The full enormity of his injury had yet to sink in as Jimmy said: 'To me the injury wasn't that bad. I just wanted to get back on the racecourse as soon as possible.'
Jimmy was given two options – to have an operation and be back in 12-14 weeks or have a collar on for three months and there'd be a 25% chance of it healing itself.
Jimmy opted for the operation.
'I had surgery two days later,' he said. 'Two months after that I was back riding out, all ready to rock and roll.'
He had, however, because of the metalwork, been left with restricted flexibility in
his neck.He was refused a licence.
After a year of hell in which he fought desperately to regain full fitness, it was a shattering body blow.
That September, the metalwork was removed, and he was given the all-clear by his surgeons.
Again he presented himself to Doctor Michael Turner.
Once again Turner refused Jimmy's application and referred him to a review panel of the licensing committee.
Jimmy got in touch with his own doctor, Philip Pritchard ('who I can't praise highly enough') who sent him on to see Professor Steven Gill in Bristol.
Jimmy recalls, 'Gill said he had never seen anyone with an injury like mine because people don't survive it. It was a miracle, really. Breaking my neck was fine. That was the simple part.
'I'd fractured the lower part of my skull and it had displaced. There are two ligaments attached to it and I snapped one. If the other one had gone as well it would have been game over.
'Anyway, after more CT scans he told me that the bottom of my skull had fused with the top of my spine. In a fall, your head cushions the initial impact but, because the bone had fused, my spine would take the full force of any fall.
'I said that I didn't want to end up in a wheelchair. He said; 'Don't worry. You won't. You'll be dead.'
'In one way it was a relief when he told me I'd never ride in races again because it meant I could stop hoping.'
But he was facing a bleak future and became bitter about the operation.
'Having surgery gave me no chance of ever coming back, so why was I given that advice in the first place? Looking back, that 25% chance of the injury healing itself seems a very good chance, a far better chance than never.
'If it had all ended with the fall, that would be one thing, and I realise I'm extremely lucky to be alive, and if this happens to someone else tomorrow, I'd hate for them to suffer the same thing.'
It is not hard to understand Jimmy's bitterness.
'I was going well, 69 winners in three seasons. I was on the way up, I was flying. I'd worked hard to get where I was going and it's all been snatched away from me. It's my dreams, it's everything.
'I still begrudge the sport for what's happened to me. I'm nearly crying watching horses I used to ride in races, nearly crying watching the horsebox leave the yard without me. I can't cope with it.'
Jimmy's future is obviously uncertain.
'What can I do? Everything except what I want to. I started showjumping when I was six and took out a jockey's licence when I was 21. Riding horse is all I've ever done.
'I schooled a few horses at Seamus Mullins' yesterday morning. People will think I'm mad. Well, it's driving me mad and keeping me sane at the same time. It keeps getting me up in the mornings. Of course I worry about the risk but it's all I know how to do. It might kill me to stay in racing but it will kill me to get out of it.'
Jimmy's been offered work as both a head lad and as assistant but chose to start a business course with the JETS scheme.
'It's something to do. In some ways if I had a job to go straight to it would be easier because I could just get my head into it. I have all the motivation and drive that I would have put into riding, and I want to put it into something else.
'Maybe I'd like to get into the betting industry because betting funds racing. I wouldn't know how to get into it but I'd like to see how that side works.
'One day, down the line, I'd like to train horses...
'Being a jockey is not a job. It's a way of life. Kate's been wonderful and I've got a great family and good friends but I've got nothing else and I have to start all over again.
'I'm trying to be positive all the time, but I've had a shit time for the last year or so but there's a lot of people worse off than myself. I have to think like that.
'I just wish I knew what the next thing was. I wish someone would point me in the right direction, tell me what to do and help me do it. But it's not that simple, is it...?
Jimmy's first ride in public March 5, 2008
Lets get Busy - jimmy's first winner July 14 2008
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