I’d rather break my leg than give birth, at least that pain goes away...
Mum Gemma back hunting winners
PICK your pain. A broken leg or childbirth? Not much of a choice but jockey Gemma Gracey-Davison does not need to think long about her answer.
‘Breaking a leg. At least the pain stops. In labour, it just goes on and on,’ she says with the knowing smile of someone who can speak from painful, personal experience.
This is a story where the squeamish should stop reading now. First the leg. A broken left femur sustained in a hurdle race fall on Ashmolian at Plumpton the day before the 2013 Cheltenham Festival. But what is a routine injury for a jockey turned out to be anything but for Gemma, who works alongside trainer mother Zoe at their stable near Lingfield, Surrey.
That particular day was about as far removed from routine as it is possible to get. After pulling up The lord be with you in her first of five rides that March 11 afternoon, she dislocated her shoulder when Shropshirelass fell in the two-mile chase. That injury was initially masked by some hastily-applied strapping.
She then won a hurdle race on Lindsay’s Dream and finished third on Tchang Goon in a steeplechase before the ride on Ashmolian.
The shoulder injury only became apparent as Gemma, still in her racing silks, kept pulling herself up as she slipped down her bed having been transferred to hospital.
When it was diagnosed, an operation had to be delayed as she would not have been able to use her crutches. And there is more. The pain that recurred in her left knee did not arise from the screws in her femur, as Gemma thought, but a snapped anterior cruciate ligament.
It is still snapped but did not stop the 27-year-old from returning to race riding last month after an 18-month spell on the sidelines with an important plus-one to go alongside the 5lb allowance she can still claim in races as a conditional jockey.
Daughter Ellie was born in June to make Gemma, whose partner Matt Johnson is in the Parachute Regiment based at Colchester, the only professional jump jockey who is also a full-time mum.
‘What chance has she got? One of us jumps over fences and the other one out of planes,’ says Gemma demonstrating the sense of humour that got her through some dark times.
‘I was very down — I was hoping to be back by September last year but everything kept snowballing and it was really depressing. Then, after the scope on my knee, I found out I was pregnant and it was, “Oh my God. I am trying to keep my weight down and am going to get massive”. ‘At one point, I thought maybe someone is telling me I shouldn’t be doing this any more and I should just give up.
‘But there was that fire in me still. Watching our horses run, I wished I was on them.
‘But I wasn’t sure how I’d really feel about coming back until I was back at the start for the first time again having been out for so long.’
What made that desire to return so admirable was that there was no golden ride to come back for. Gemma and her family stable rarely
grace the glamour days. They make the most of modest ammunition, seeking out hard-earned opportunities. Her best season, ironically the one in which she was injured, yielded only six wins.
So has motherhood changed her outlook? ‘I am more cautious. Before, I would have ridden anything,’ Gemma says. ‘Now I am a bit more particular what I ride. I look at its form. I have responsibilities.
‘You are not guaranteed you are going to come back in one piece but you have more of a chance if you avoid the nutcase rides. But if I have any doubts I will stop. It is not a career if you have doubts, that’s when accidents happen.’
A first winner since she returned to race riding arrived at Bangor the Monday before Christmas when Frank N Fair, trained by her mother, won over hurdles. This afternoon she will be in action at Leicester riding The lord be with you in the novice hurdle and Nozic in the Stilton Handicap Chase.
The last-named chaser is the best horse Gemma has ridden, winning at Kempton in December 2012 as well as finishing second at Ascot.
He is a horse close to her heart. She admits that on that dark Plumpton day, the thought that struck her first was the possible prospect of missing the ride on Nozic at the Cheltenham Festival. ‘I just burst into tears,’ she says.
But after watching someone else in her place for 11 runs, Gemma was back in the saddle when the gelding finished third at Leicester at the start of the month.
If he can provide Gemma with a second winner since her comeback, it will be the late Christmas present she has dreamt about throughout the long rehabilitation.