I’m doing this to win.. not because I’ve only got one leg
DON’T tell Guy Disney sport is not about the winning, but the taking part.
“I like winning, like every other person,” says the 36-yearold former Army captain.
“It’s a horrific drug, winning – you get greedy for it.
“You cross the line and it’s complete elation for 30 seconds, but then you’re over it. “You want to do it again.” Never mind winning. The fact Disney is taking part at Aintree today is the most remarkable aspect of the three-day Grand National meeting where the unheard-of has become routine.
As much can be said with certainty, even before the first of the 21 races has been run.
For when Disney takes the mount on Gallery Exhibition in the Foxhunters’ Chase, he will become the first amputee jockey to tackle the Grand National fences.
“I’m pretty bemused by it all,” Disney says of the media interest in a man with no lower right leg riding a half-ton thoroughbred over 18 of the most feared obstacles in racing.
“I’m genuinely not trying to be humble, but I feel quite sorry for everyone else in the race – there’s this focus on a onelegged bloke.”
Disney’s indifference towards this chapter of equestrian history is neither wilful antagonism, nor a see-through attempt at false modesty.
It is borne out of the perspective he took on from an enemy ambush in July 2009, when he was on duty with the Light Dragoons in Babaji, Helmand Province, during a 10-day period of the war in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of 11 British servicemen.
The then 27-year-old was out on patrol when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle, killing Private Robbie Robbie Laws, 18. Disney owes his own life to his brother soldiers.
“They somehow managed to stick a tourniquet on my leg,” he recounts. “They did that in the dark, with a dead body next to them, in a vehicle full of smoke and under fire. Some of them were 18 years old.” Transferred to the military wing of Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham – where Gallery Exhibition’s trainer Kim Bailey was among his visitors – Disney a keen amateur jockey since his teens, was determined to get back in the saddle. “Kim’s a friend – my dad was his doctor,” adds Disney. “I rode out there a bit and I’d ridden for him in a few races prior to being injured. He just popped in to see how I was getting on.” Returning to his Gloucestershire home, Disney found he enjoyed full control of family pony Mr Ben. But his application for an amateur rider’s licence was refused by the BHA on safety grounds. Disney vented his rustration by walking to the North Pole in April 2011 to raise funds for Walking With The Wounded, and was accompanied by Prince Harry when trekking to the South Pole for the Armed Forces charity in December 2013.
In between, he returned to Afghanistan to complete his service.
The BHA’s concern was the lack of feeling or movement below his knee could leave Disney ‘hung up’ – unable to release his foot from the stirrup – in the event of a fall.
But the development of Toe Stoppers – stirrup irons in which the foot is prevented slipping fully forward – changed the game.
His licence returned, Disney made history as the first rider with a prosthetic limb to line up under rules when Ballyallia Man ran third in the Royal Artillery Gold Cup for military riders at Sandown in February 2013.
Last year, Disney won the historic steeplechase aboard the David Pipe trainee Rathlin Rose, following up in the Grand Military Gold Cup there three weeks later. The same partnership won the Royal Artillery this season, before Disney put together the Somerset Racing syndicate to purchase 2016 Topham Chase fifth Gallery Exhibition. Today’s challenge is not a publicity stunt, a record attempt or even an act to raise awareness of a worthy issue. “I’m not trying to set a new standard for people with one leg in racing,” insists Disney. “It’s great if someone else looks at me and says, ‘That makes me want to get on a horse.’ But I’m a very selfish person and I’m doing this because I like winning. No other reason. “If I’m lucky enough to win the Foxhunters’, it would be an amazing feeling, but it wouldn’t feel any better for me than it would for someone else. “For me, ‘the leg thing’ doesn’t make it mean any more or less.”