Amateur rider Lorna Brooke died on Sunday, April 18 2021, aged 37, from injuries sustained in a third-fence fall in the Pontispool Equine Sports Centre Handicap Chase at Taunton on April 8.
She was airlifted to Southmead Hospital in Bristol after falling from Orchestrated, trained by her mother Lady Susan Brooke, and was admitted to intensive care with a suspected spinal injury. Following complications that resulted in a significant swelling of the brain, she was placed into an induced coma on Friday, April 16 but, despite the hospital doctors’ best efforts, her condition deteriorated and she passed away two days later.
Lorna Brooke was the daughter of Sir Alistair Brooke, the 4th Baronet Brooke of Almondbury, and Lady Susan Brooke. She rode 17 winners in Britain and Ireland – plus 40 in point-to-points – from more than 300 rides. She rode mostly in the orange with brown circle colours of her permit holder mother, who trained at Tyn-y-Berth Farm, near Llandrindod Wells, in Powys.
Having ridden the 12-year-old Hag’s Way to win a point-to-point at Barbary Castle in January 2002, Lorna made her debut under NH rules on that horse in a Ludlow hunter chase the following month, only to be unseated at the 14th fence. Back in the point-to-point sphere, they returned to winning action next time out at Garnons in March.
Lorna celebrated her first winner under rules aboard 12-year-old Super Nomad, who sprang a 20-1 surprise in the Ludlow Gold Cup Hunters’ Chase on April 29, 2007. They won again at the same track, this time at 25-1, in March 2008.
Her biggest victory came when she was selected by the Amateur Jockeys Association of Great Britain to ride in the inaugural running of the Ladies Handicap Chase at Fairyhouse on November 18, 2015. She won the race on 25-1 shot Moonlone Lane for trainer Paul Stafford, beating Katie Walsh into second place, with Lizzie Kelly third and Rachael Blackmore fourth. Lorna showed it was no fluke when riding Moonlane Lad to win a handicap hurdle at Musselburgh on his next start three weeks later.
Lorna also represented Great Britain in Arabian racing in Bahrain and Poland in 2015 as part of HH Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarek Ladies World Series and competed in the final in Abu Dhabi. In 2018, she took part in a race in Mauritius and twice rode in Germany in 2019 as part of a team of British jockeys.
She recorded her best season in 2013/14 with three winners and equalled that score in 2017/18. She enjoyed most success at Ludlow, where she won six times from more than 100 rides. She was particularly effective in chases, winning 15 times over fences.
She won three chases on Spock between October 2016 and December 2017. She rode Spock no less than 44 times under rules between April 2016 and November 2020, finishing fourth at Ludlow on their final start together, by which time Spock was 15 years old.
She also won three chases on Shininstar for trainer John Groucott, the last of them in an amateur riders’ handicap chase for the Court Of Hill Challenge Cup at Ludlow on October 24, 2019. Sadly, that would prove to be her last success under rules.
In her final season, when amateur rider participation was limited due to Covid-19 restrictions, she had 29 rides and finished second three times.
Opening his tribute to Lorna in the Injured Jockeys Fund’s Spring 2021 Newsletter, former IJF President Brough Scott wrote: “How can you love a game that does this to its most devoted? That is the brutal question but be sure that “love” was in Lorna’s answer.
“She adored the game. It lit up her life for 20 years,” he continued, going on to talk of the “never-to-be-forgotten day at Fairyhouse in November 2015” when Lorna and Moonlone Lane had won that race with Katie Walsh, Lizzie Kelly and Rachael Blackmore behind her. Said Brough:
He concluded his tribute: “Of course, non-believers will still think race riding is a form of madness but for Lorna and the rest of us it’s best to resort to those famous lines from Longfellow:
“Ask not, the helmsman answered, the secrets of the sea. Only those that have braved its dangers, can comprehend its mystery.”
