Jockey Blake Spriggs knows he is lucky to be alive after surviving a sickening race fall in January.
This is why he is grateful rather than jealous about watching one of his favourite horses, Headwall, start without him in the group 1 TJ Smith Stakes at Randwick on Saturday.
Headwall and trainer Matthew Smith on Friday, and Blake SpriggsCredit: Stephen Kiprillis
Spriggs was in the saddle for Headwall’s win on debut, and piloted him to victory another three times, including last spring in the Warra at Kembla Grange.
The jockey and one of Headwall’s leading owners, Reg Young, have known each other years and dreamt about teaming up with the horse in a major group 1.
Spriggs and fellow jockey Beany Panya crashed to the turf during a race at Moruya, on the NSW south coast, in January, with genuine fears Spriggs would not survive.
The 33-year-old is not only making a recovery but says the near-death experience has put things into perspective, including watching a group 1 race he knows he should have been a part of.
Trainer Matthew Smith has turned to Zac Lloyd for Saturday but said he would have loved to have seen Spriggs ride Headwall in his toughest test.
Spriggs opened up about the nasty fall, the toll it took on his loved ones, whether he will return to race riding, and what a group 1 triumph for Headwall would mean to him.
“I broke every rib except for two, both lungs collapsed and filled with blood, I had a haemorrhaged liver, my kidneys shut down, I fractured my left forearm, dislocated my left elbow, and fractured my collarbone on the same side,” Spriggs tells this masthead.
“I also had a pretty bad concussion. I’ve since seen the neurologist, and I’ll go for scans in the next couple of months to see how I’m progressing.
Matthew Smith and his TJ Smith Stakes chance Headwall on Friday.Credit: Janie Barrett/SMH
“My memory still isn’t great, which is common with all the sedation I was on. I don’t remember anything from the fall, which is a good thing. I don’t remember being awake until after two weeks I was in hospital.
“When [partner] KC arrived at the hospital, the doctors told her to prepare for the worst. I have no memory of it, but I don’t know what it was like for her and my family to go through that.
“Once I started to stabilise, I caught pneumonia, and because my body was so weak, it knocked me around.
“As I’ve said to my mates, ‘it was the photo finish of a life, but I’ve got the bob in’.
‘I don’t remember anything from the fall, which is a good thing.’
Jockey Blake Spriggs on his fall at Moruya
“Nothing else matters now. When you think about getting beaten by a bob in races, it feels like nothing now.
“Even watching Headwall on Saturday, the competitor in me will be disappointed.
“But I think of the father in me, and to look at my son [Brooklyn], and see him look at me and be so happy, and to know he never realised how close he was to losing his father, that’s what makes me realise how lucky I am. We love racing, we live and breathe the sport, but I now realise it’s a job, and family is what means the most.
“I haven’t put a time period on a return. I have to let myself heal and see how the body feels before I mentally think about a return. The thing I have to also take into account is what I’ve already put my family through.”
Spriggs dropped to 44kg in hospital but is slowly regaining weight. He drove nine hours to his sister Dimitee’s wedding in country Coonamble on Friday as he wasn’t medically cleared to fly.
He and KC plan to pull into a pub on the way home on Saturday to watch Headwall, a horse he knew was special from one of the first times he hopped aboard. He would have gone to the track for the first time since his fall had he remained in Sydney.
“I would have been on him Saturday, I still speak to Reg every few days. He texted me on Thursday night, telling me all the owners were thinking of me,” Spriggs said.
“When he won early last preparation without me because they had to claim [with an apprentice], Reg called me within two minutes of the horse crossing the line, telling me it wasn’t the same because I wasn’t there. It meant a lot.
“The horse has always had an excellent ability to run good sectionals with ease. When Usain Bolt was at his best, he’d pull away from his rivals, but look like he was just jogging. That’s what it feels like on Headwall.
“I’m lucky to be involved with such a loyal group. That will be the hardest part. It’s not winning a group 1, it’s not the prize money, it’s not being part of that special story we had.
“Headwall caught the eye when fourth in the Oakleigh Plate, and was the one chasing Joliestar into second in the Newmarket.”
Headwall meets some of his rivals worse off at the weights because of the weight-for-age conditions, but Smith said: “It’s a bloody good race and good field. But I can’t have him any better. He’s cherry-ripe for the day, he looks good, he’s worked well, he’s ready to go. Whatever he does will be his best.
“Blake has had a great association with the owners and horse, he’s a champion bloke, and I’m just so happy he’s OK.”
