Moore is fighting fit and determined to break his Champions Day duck
RYAN MOORE will arrive at Ascot today fully aware he has yet to win a race at British Champions Day since its creation in 2011.
But Moore’s disciples, who follow him blind at the Leicesters and Lingfields of the Flat-racing summer, are just thankful he’s here at all.
The 32-year-old left Newmarket’s July meeting for Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge after his mount Newton’s Law had reared in the starting stalls.
As the sprinter crashed upwards into the structure, he wedged his rider’s head and neck between a half-ton thoroughbred and unyielding steel.
“That’s what comes from riding horses – you get broken up sometimes,” is the jockey’s recollection of the impact that sidelined him for 77 days with an injured neck.
“I remember everything clearly. The horse wasn’t in a good frame of mind – he went straight up and I banged my head on the top and the bottom.
“But I know my body fairly well. I knew what I had done when I was lying on the floor.
“Things were under control immediately – I’ve got very good people around me, I saw an excellent doctor and I was very well looked after.”
His neck in a brace, Moore ( r i g ht) was ordered to rest for three weeks – with unscheduled family time with partner Michelle and their three young children to sugar the pill – before embarking on the journey back to race-riding fitness.
“I had to change things because I couldn't do anything high impact at first, but there are steps that I know all too well that you should be doing,” he explains.
The recuperation process went to plan, interrupted only by a Racing Post front page that predicted Moore would be out for the rest of the year – missing lucrative work in Canada, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong as a consequence.
“It made me really angry as I had to deal with people – who think you’re a lot worse than you are – at a time when I didn't need that,” says Moore.
“I don’t know where they got that from – they were just guessing – I’d never been told that I’d be out for the year and it irritates me immensely.”
Eleven weeks to the day after the accident Moore weighed out at Newmarket for his return.
“I knew when I came back I was fit and strong – everything was healed.” Three Group 1 victories, aboard Ballydoyle, Minding and Air Force Blue, attest to that.
Gleneagles, ground permitting, spearheads the Moore quartet in the card's top-tier races when crossing swords with Solow in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Aidan O'Brien will assess the playing surface before giving the Newmarket and Curragh 2,000 Guineas victor his blessing to run.
Found ( Champion Stakes), Tapestry (Fillies & Mares) and Twilight Son ( Sprint) are his other top- level rides. The former must upset favourite Jack Hobbs to lift the Champion Stakes after running ninth to Golden Horn in the Arc 13 days ago, but Moore is upbeat.
“Found got a terrible trip,” he says. “In the straight, the Godolphin horse [Manatee] flattened me. I wouldn’t be too reliant on the Arc form – her form is very good.”