After missing most of the spring carnival with a nasty shoulder injury, Brock Ryan hopes fate might have delivered a big race success on one of his favourites, Jamaea, in the Hot Danish Stakes at Rosehill on Saturday.
Ryan disappeared from the ranks after riding Count De Rupee in the Missile Stakes at the beginning of August. A trackwork fall that morning had left him with a “dented” shoulder.
Brock Ryan gives the thumbs up on Jamaea as he returns after winning the Furious Stakes at Randwick last year.Credit:Getty
“I actually fell at trackwork and had my arm wrapped around the horse’s neck and dislocated my shoulder,” Ryan recalled. “I bounced up pretty quickly and popped it back in and went to the races that day because it felt fine.
“The next morning I couldn’t lift it past 45 degrees and I knew something was seriously wrong.”
The injury could have resulted in Ryan being out for a year, but being a quick healer, Ryan returned a lot quicker and now he wants to get back in the winner’s circle.
“I don’t know if I did it in the fall or when I put it back in, but I tore the labrum [which is the cartilage in the shoulder] and broke the point of the shoulder. When I say I broke it, it was dented like a panel on a car,” Ryan explained.
“Once I saw the doctor, there were two options: to have surgery and miss nine months to a year or just let it mend and the best scenario was to be back in four to five months. He told me the surgery should be a late resort, so we let it fix itself and, after a month, he was happy not to go with the surgery.”
There is a toughness to Ryan, who remembered the lessons that his old boss Gwenda Markwell, who died last week, instilled in him as an apprentice.
“She taught me to listen to the horse, but also to work hard,” Ryan said. “It has been a sad week, but I know Gwenda would be saying to me. ‘You need to get back riding winners straight away’.”
Ryan rode his first winners back at Kembla Grange on Melbourne Cup day and was lucky to pick up the ride on Jamaea when she was a late entry for Hot Danish.
He has been involved in the Headwater mare’s career since she arrived at the Robert and Luke Price stables a couple of years ago, and he won the group 2 Furious Stakes on her last year.
“I remember coming back after her first jumpout and telling them she was Golden Slipper filly and they all laughed at me,” Ryan said.
“She has always been a top-class filly and won good races all the way through. She could be the right horse in a big race at the right time for me on Saturday.
“They weren’t going to run her, but she came back from that run in Melbourne last weekend in great order. She gets back on a good track in a race that has a good tempo. I think we might see the best of her at Rosehill on the weekend, coming with one run.”
Ryan has also picked up rides for Bjorn Baker in the Five Diamonds and Golden Gift.
He likes the look of first-starter Disneck in the $1million two-year-old race, while Ita is an outsider in the Five Diamonds.
“You need to hit the ground running when you are coming back, so I gave myself an extra week to be right before taking rides,” Ryan said. “I want to get on the board as quickly as possible in town and to have support from Bjorn is a great start.
“I had a look at Disneck’s trial win, and the way he knuckled down late to win it was pretty impressive after the leader skipped away on him on the turn.
“He has to be in with a chance, and I ride Eye See Things in the Midway, which was one of the last horses I rode before my break, and I think he is a good chance for me as well.”
