Miracle jockey lives to ride on
MICHAEL Walker shouldn’t be here. The odds said it; the doctors said it, more than once.
If he lived, he certainly wouldn’t be belting around racetracks at speeds of more than 60km/h.
And yet, the “colourful” jockey – his term – has returned to the top of his game.
After a second serious injury that could well have ended his career, he’ll pilot Main Stage in the Victoria Derby at Flemington on Saturday.
Nine years ago, Walker fell down a cliff while taking a mate for “one last pig hunt” in Taranaki, on the North Island of his native New Zealand.
It was a 70m drop, with a 100kg pig in tow.
“Head first,” Walker said. “I split my head open and they could see my jaw.
“I only stayed alive because it was winter and it was like -5C or -10C. I had nothing on, so it kept me alive.”
He laid there, lapsing in and out of consciousness, vomiting and bleeding for 15 hours – overnight – before he was winched out by emergency services.
“My family was told that if I survived, I’d be a vegetable,” Walker said. “I was supposed to be dead. I was dead.
“They got to the point where they were going to have to make a decision to turn off the (life support) machine; my brain was gone. I was bleeding in over 30 places in my brain.”
Doctors decided to try to
get him breathing on his own.
The 33-year-old remembers nothing from the incident but can recall waking up in the presence of a cousin, who “ran out crying and got everyone”.
His short-term memory remains a struggle at times, as is fatigue. He can get “a little bit grumpy”, he will admit with a cheeky grin.
You’d have thought Walker had used all of his bad luck but a back injury earlier this year sidelined him for more than six months.
He was riding for trainer John Hawkes at Moonee Valley when his troublesome back seized.
But things are looking up. Walker saluted with Mighty Boss in the recent Group 1 Caulfield Guineas, defying the odds yet again.
And he is chasing another Group 1 on Saturday when he rides $7 chance Main Stage for co-trainers Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young.