Army veteran turned jockey Guy Disney on making history as an amputee
The former army officer turned jockey tells Aimi Clark about losing half a leg in a grenade attack, winning races and never giving up
I’M EXTREMELY BORED of being known as that amputee chap with one leg,” states a defiant Guy Disney as he takes a seat in his sponsor Lycetts’ marquee at Belton Horse Trials. The former army officer has just given a talk to 50-odd people about life in the saddle since losing his right leg from the knee down while serving in Afghanistan. It comes three days after he made history as the first British amputee to ride over the Grand National fences in the Fox Hunters’ Chase at the famous Aintree racecourse. “I think the bigger story is the youngest lad in my race being only 18 — not the average 36-year-old jockey who came last.” Google Captain Guy Disney, former soldier, and you can understand why he describes media attention as “tedious”. Pages and pages of news with headlines like “Amputee
soldier makes racing history” and “Injured war veteran rides into history” appear. To look at him, you wouldn’t know Guy is an amputee. There’s no limp. He strides out and has that purposeful, not-hangingaround march typical of a horsey person. He’s a straight down the line guy. Talk about racing, horses and his days in the army, and he’ll chat. But fuss, admiration, compliments — he’d rather you didn’t. Besides the Aintree milestone, Guy rewrote the history books as the first amputee jockey to win at a professional British racecourse (Sandown) in 2017. That was the end result of years of fighting British Horseracing Authority (BHA) rules to be granted a jockey licence.
The Cheltenham-based jockey has always enjoyed riding horses. His youth was spent in the saddle, at a racing yard or point-to-pointing. Guy’s mum, Fiona, is a former nurse who kept pointers and race-rode herself. His father, John, was a doctor, and Cheltenham racecourse fell in his patch. Childhood friend Tom Scudamore — son of eight-time champion jockey Peter — is still one of Guy’s best friends. After graduating from the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, Guy enlisted in 2006. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather on his mother’s side flew Spitfires in World War II. “The military is a young person’s game and I liked the options it gave me,” he says. “I had a good balance between the army and racing. On rotations you’re busy, but if you can justify time out they’ll let you go — and sport is huge in the army.” Guy served for seven years. That fateful, life-changing day in Afghanistan came on Saturday, 4 July 2009, during operation Panther’s Claw when the Mercian Regiment, supported by armoured vehicles of the Light Dragoons (Guy’s regiment), came under fire. A rocket-propelled grenade pierced the hull of Guy’s vehicle and hit his right leg, killing a lieutenant beside him. “I was bleeding out; there was about 60 seconds until I was dead,” recalls Guy, who credits the quick-thinking actions of those around him with saving his life. They applied a tourniquet to stem the blood and an RAF Chinook came in, under fire, to evacuate him. His leg couldn’t be saved. Two days later Guy was in Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital and, in less than two weeks, he went home. Rehabilitation took place at the military’s Headley Court and he’s worn a prosthetic limb that attaches at the knee ever since.
What next for a young, active soldier with a war-ravaged body? The little things, like walking and getting out of bed, had to be relearned. The family home needed altering to make it more accessible. It would have been so easy to sit at home and lose touch with the world. But not Guy. Even horses, he says, were never truly off the cards. “I think most people assumed that that would be it, no more riding,”
I’m a short-term goal kind of person and I focus on the now. Life is for living
he muses. “But when I sat on my old pony at home it didn’t feel any different.” Guy piloted a Kim Bailey-trained horse in a charity race in February 2010, barely six months after he lost his leg. It made him hungry to race again, but his licence application was turned down flat. It would take four years to change the BHA’s decision. “I was seen by a doctor who wasn’t interested in entertaining the idea of me riding. He wouldn’t even chat about ideas to make it work. That was frustrating.” The BHA had three concerns: (1) Guy’s foot may get stuck in the stirrup if he were unseated and he’d be dragged; (2) he wouldn’t be able to feel his foot slipping out of the stirrup and (3) if he lost a stirrup iron, he wouldn’t be able to get it back. Although there were amputee jockeys after the end of the Second World War, it is rare today and, unsure how to change the decision, Guy wondered what he would do instead. “I didn’t want a desk job, so I went back to the army and went out to Afghanistan again in 2012,” he says.
Walking With The Wounded, a charity that rehabilitates soldiers for employment outside of the army, became a major part of Guy’s life. He joined its patron Prince Harry and other seriously injured soldiers — some also missing limbs — on two expeditions, one to the North Pole in 2011 and then to the South in 2013. The North Pole involved a staggering 190 miles in 10-and-a-half weeks. Two years later Guy reached the South Pole too, pulling a 70kg (11 stone) sled for more than 200 miles over three weeks. “It was good to have Harry there — it raised awareness for the charity and he’s a good guy,” is the only information Guy will divulge about his royal walking companion. It was during a fitness assessment that Guy met Dr David Carey, a racehorse owner and doctor retraining to be a barrister. David, who had previously run functional tests for getting pilots back into cockpits, agreed to take on the licence application. “He did it pro bono, which was amazingly good of him, and it took the next few years to build a case. While I was in Afghan in 2012, we were emailing back and forth trying to disprove the BHA’s theories [see box, above].”
This time, Guy’s application to race-ride was accepted. “My parents never thought I’d get it and neither did my friends, but not one of them could give any reasons why I shouldn’t be allowed to. “It was an incredible moment after all that time. But then I had to ask myself, ‘do I really want to do this?’ I hadn’t ridden in a race for a good four years.” Since then, Guy has won three point-topoints and he still rides out for David Pipe. He’s also working with a medical training company to take veterans out to Zambia and retrain them. “It’s life saving,” he says enthusiastically. “Soldiers like to do something and hate feeling like a burden. This programme shows they can do something with those skills — in medical, communications, vehicle maintenance for example — and not just sit at home on benefits getting depressed.” Guy is 36 now and unsure how long he’ll be competitive in the saddle. “I dislocated my shoulder last season and fractured my back and broke a thumb this year. I’m aware I don’t bounce as well now I’m older,” he admits. “A couple more expeditions would be great, but I’m a short-term goal kind of person and I focus on the now. Life is for living and I have no regrets.”
I was bleeding out; there was about 60 seconds until I was dead