ONE day your star is soaring into the stratospheric heights, the next you are anchored to the earth in a moon boot. But in racing, them’s the breaks.
Just ask Swan Hill jockey Madison Lloyd.
Last Wednesday she rode into history as the first female apprentice – and only the second female rider – to win the prestigious $200,000 Wangoom Handicap in its 142-year-history.
On the Thursday Lloyd was having her “sore” left leg X-rayed to confirm the worst – her fibula had snapped in two.
Her victory on Frankie Pinot in the Wangoom is all the more impressive because there is no doubt Lloyd had been getting around on a broken leg since a training fall at Wangaratta on Friday, April 29.
“I was on a two-year-old doing jump-outs and he was a bit scared of all the barrier people and reared up and I was hanging on to his headgear but didn’t want him to flip over, so I let go and fell to the track,” Lloyd said.
“I landed on my left ankle, and felt a pop and grabbed my leg in the same area where the bone turned out to be broken, and in the end some of the boys on the barrier had to carry me from the track.
“But I had a ride on Jucconi the next day at Sandown and I didn’t want to miss that but even so had to get cleared by the race-day doctor to ride.”
She finished second at Sandown.
“(The leg) was sore, and I had been advised to go and get it thoroughly checked but, being me, I sort of put that off for the time being,” Lloyd said with a laugh.
“I wasn’t doing much so I just took a few painkillers and headed for Warrnambool.”
Where the rest is, as they say, history. The feisty apprentice with the megawatt smile toughed it out for a barnstorming victory in one of the most sought-after prizes in regional Victoria.
In the end, however, Lloyd couldn’t hide the fact she was hurt because she couldn’t walk properly, and limping everywhere is not a good look for jockeys.
“Because it is my left leg, people throwing me on to the horse’s back in the mounting yard had to be very careful because that could really hurt,” she said.
Now she’s on the sidelines for six weeks. But, Lloyd being Lloyd, she has an appointment in four weeks with Racing Victoria chief medical officer Dr Gary Zimmerman “just in case”.
She said the leg would again be X-rayed and a decision made about her return to work.
Which means the 21-year-old might actually take the best medical advice and make sure her leg is non-weight bearing for three weeks.
Lloyd’s only problem now is how to keep fit and, most importantly, for a person who lives to ride, how to not go out of her mind with boredom.
“I’ve had a few injuries before, but I’ve been pretty lucky and never had a broken bone until now.
“I’ve tried to watch one movie but couldn’t see it through, and I have been keeping up to date through racing.com, but I’m not a movie person, and I’m definitely not a sit-still-for-a-month person.”
But she is the one with the broken leg, and no amount of impatience is going to make it knit any faster.
