Why the dazed and confused jockey says he is fine
The BHA’S drive for education on concussion puts responsibility on fellow riders and trainers, writes Marcus Armytage
Sometimes the ability to pick up the symptoms of concussion are impaired by concussion
As a regular three-cups-of-coffee-aday man, I was pleased to read every cup I buy now not only adds points to my Costa card but to the card of life at the rate of nine minutes a shot.
Not that I am competitive but, no doubt, I will get hit by a bus trying to work out how much longer I will live than my non-coffeedrinking sister (the number of days I have been drinking coffee, times three, times nine divided by 60 to get the answer in hours) while trying to cross a road.
But it is whenever the British Horseracing Authority enhances its already cutting-edge concussion protocols that I feel properly blessed, as it reminds me how lucky I was to race-ride on and off for 20 years while enduring my fair share of rolling around on the ground – because I still ride, I say this with my fingers crossed – without sustaining concussion.
Though I put it down to good fortune that a hoof did not have my name on it, it makes me a “wooden top”. Some less fortunate colleagues were “glass jaws”, in that, in an extreme case, one would end up concussed even when he landed on his feet.
My first encounter with the concept of concussion was as a nine-year-old at the 1974 Grand National (Red Rum’s second) in which my father trained one of the favourites, Barona.
After coming down at Becher’s Brook, his jockey, the square-jawed no-nonsense Paul Kelleway, returned to the weighing room reporting that he had been pulled off Barona by fellow jockey Andy Turnell, who had lost his balance and, on his way to the point of no return, had grabbed the nearest thing, Kelleway’s arm.
There were no replays to corroborate Kelleway’s preposterous claim. “Must be concussed,” my father reasoned. I realised then, concussion must be a state of some confusion, and he had a quiet word with the racecourse doctor who stood Kelleway down for the rest of the day to add insult to non-injury.
Apart from tightening regulation and increasing research into concussion and helmet design, one of the BHA’S drives is to educate jockeys. It often appears the only people who do not get the seriousness of concussion are the sportsmen. Hence, the jockey’s apparently natural instinct to hoodwink the doctor into believing he is right as rain.
However, Dr Jerry Hill, the BHA’S chief medical adviser, says that it is not the jockeys’ fault, as the ability to pick up the symptoms of concussion are impaired by concussion. In other words, you truly believe you are fine because the organ which detects abnormalities is not working and it is not just a case of jockeys trying to pull a fast one.
Picking up on concussion is as much the responsibility of trainers, valets and fellow jockeys who know the concussed victim best, as it is the injured jockey himself. Some meaningful questions have always been part of evaluating concussion.
These tend to be more Question of Sport than Oxbridge entrance interview, so “Who won the Gold Cup?” rather than something more generic like “Why are manholes round?” or “How would you calculate the number of molecules of H2O in the ocean?”
Nowadays, it also includes a balance test called a tandem stance, whereby you stand heel to toe, hands on hips, eyes closed for 20 seconds – without wobbling over. Not that easy, sober, unconcussed or, indeed, after any amount of coffee.
Friends say they have noticed a near permanent state of vagueness about me. I put this down to a personality trait rather than the lasting effects of any fall but, having failed the tandem stance, now I am not so sure.