Tom Greenway

Tom Greenway 

1983-2021

Tom Greenway rode more than 40 winners under National Hunt rules as an amateur and a conditional during a career in which he also came back from breaking his neck in three places in a fall at Towcester when he was 21.

Tom hailed from a family with strong ring links. His father was involved with point-pointing, while his grandfather Ted Greenway was Red Rum’s vet. Tom started out in point-to-points, which was followed by riding out for local trainers in the school holidays.

A couple of rides for Ginger McCain and time spent at Henrietta Knight’s yard led to a successful spell as amateur to Naunton trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies. He rode five winners from 44 mounts in the 2002/03 season, three of them for Peter Bowen. He finished runner-up in both the Fegentri and Bollinger Champagne amateur series.

While still claiming 7lb, Tom made headlines at Perth on Thursday, September 25, 2003 when registering a treble on three of Twiston-Davies’s horses, landing the novice hurdle on Champagne Harry, the amateur riders’ handicap hurdle on Ela La Senza and the bumper on What Do’In. 

Shropshire trainer Heather Dalton then played her part in the rise of Tom’s career by offering him a position as conditional jockey at Norton House Stables. Tom decided to leave Twiston-Davies’s yard and joined Dalton’s as a conditional at Christmas 2003. 

Others to support him included permit holder Mrs Billie Thompson, who provided Tom with a winning ride on Interdit in the Persimmon Homes Handicap Chase at Kelso on February 5, 2004, losing his 7lb claim in the process. Seven days later he rode his first as a 5lb claimer when guiding McCracken to victory in a Huntingdon hurdle race. That was his 15th winner of the season and things were going well. He was getting plenty of good rides. 

But all that changed one bleak Sunday afternoon at Towcester, on February 22, 2004. He was riding Heather Dalton’s six-year-old grey mare Angelena Ballerina, a 50-1 shot making her first start over fences. She jumped the first well enough but crashed through the second, taking a fatal fall and firing Tom into the ground.

The fall knocked him unconscious and the stricken jockey was placed on a scoop stretcher and taken by ambulance to Northampton Hospital, and later to Stoke Mandeville, when the seriousness of his injuries were fully realised. He had broken three vertebrae in his neck. He regained consciousness that evening, waking up, fully immobilised, to be told by the doctors that he’d broken my neck.

Incredibly, he was on his feet two days later and fitted with a special fixed brace that he was to wear for the next two months. A further month was spent in a flexible brace. He was told he would make a full enough recovery to lead a normal life, but would never be able to ride horses again. That was a verdict he couldn't accept and he went on to defy those doctors.

Scans followed at three, six and nine months. It was then that the specialist told Tom that there was no longer any sign of the injury and, with the help of physiotherapy, it was believed he could return to race-riding.

Tom duly called the Jockey Club to discuss regaining his licence. He was eventually pronounced fit to ride again. The newspapers dubbed him the ‘miracle man’.

His first winner since the accident was an acclaimed short-head victory aboard the Peter Bowen-trained novice chaser Touch Closer at Market Rasen on August 13, 2005. He ended the season with eight wins, four of them Bowen, from 136 rides. 

He won 10 races from 120 mounts in 2006/07 but just two from 34 in 2007/08, one of which was on Lady Suffragette in a Market Rasen novices’ handicap hurdle on June 29, 2007 for Newmarket trainer John Berry. 

He rode as conditional jockey for Henry Daly and was among the jockeys who taught children about racing in the popular Racing to School initiative. However, with opportunities becoming fewer and fewer he quit the saddle in 2013, qualified as a plumber and helped his brother with his property business. 

Sadly, Tom Greenway passed away on Monday, November 8, 2021 following a health battle. He was only 38 years old and was about to became involved in the bloodstock industry at the time of his death. The funeral took place on November 16 at St Boniface Church in Bunbury, Cheshire.