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Jockey Told She’d Never Walk Again, Back In The Saddle After Nightmare Fall

Maija Vance, the jockey who was told she would never walk again after a horrific race fall, has started riding trackwork in the latest stage of an extraordinary recovery from life-changing injuries.

In September 2018 the 29-year-old suffered 13 rib fractures and broke her back in five places with the T8 vertebra crushing her spinal cord and leaving her with no feeling or movement from the waist down.

Now she is riding out for trainer Tarissa Mitchell and even talking of one day “riding on racedays” again.

“I'm doing really good,” she said in an interview with Radio TAB Australia. “I've been working very closely with my physio, trying to get back to riding racehorses. So I've just started back on the track now and it's going really, really well.

“I'm just riding some quiet ones pacework, and hopefully will work up from there. I'm riding work for Tarissa Mitchell. She also had an accident a couple of years ago. She's been really helpful and understands.

“It's hard for me to put timeframes on things because my legs don't work like a normal person's, so I kind of just have to try and see what works for them and how long they take to recover, so I leave a few days in between when I ride trackwork to let them recover properly. Then I put my irons up a little bit and ride a bit shorter.

”I'm in a little bit of pain all the time but pain doesn't really affect me that much. The more I do in the gym and the more trackwork I do, the more I am strengthening up my back – and the more I can strengthen the better protected it is.”

Vance, from Cambridge, New Zealand, spent three months in Auckland's Spinal Rehabilitation Unit, where feeling gradually returned, and after 18 months which included time in a wheelchair and using a walker, she completed a 526-step climb to the top of Mount Maunganui.

Doctors said former jockey wouldn't walk again – but now she can climb a mountain.

She is the daughter of former jockey-turned-trainer Bob Vance, a Cox Plate winner in the saddle, and jockey Jenny Vance, who rode in her native Sweden as Jenny Moller.

Maija has ridden 175 winners in New Zealand and Australia but was having only her fourth ride over jumps when she came down on Zedsational in a hurdle race at Arawa Park. The horse's trainer Glynn Brick spent many hours with Vance while she was in hospital, but died in a car crash in March.

“They said it was pretty unlikely that I would walk again,” said Vance. “I had 13 rib fractures, which were probably the most painful. The ribs punctured my lungs so they filled up with blood and they had to drain my lungs. I had five vertebrae broken and when the T8 broke it crushed my spinal cord which was what left me paralyzed.

“Glynn Brick was there with me the whole time. He got to see me walking the mountain, which made him really happy. Glynn would have never put me on something he thought would fall, it was just very unlucky. He felt absolutely terrible. Unfortunately he passed away a few months ago.”

Nearly NZ$40,000 (£21,000) was raised to help Vance get the help she needed to walk again. Her story has been described as inspirational.

“I don't think so,” she said. “I think I am just very lucky.”

This story was originally published at horseracingplanet.com and is reprinted here with permission.

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Kirkpatrick & Co Presents In Their Care: Labarre, Montanez ‘Stronger Together’ After Harrowing Accident

Exercise rider Chloe Labarre tuned in to watch the first race at Laurel Park in Maryland on July 17, a 5 1/2-furlong turf contest. Her fiancé, Rosario Montanez, had picked up the mount on Hendaya due to an injury to another rider.

Labarre remembers feeling some concern as the runners advanced to the starting gate because neither of them was familiar with the 4-year-old filly. She breathed a sigh of relief when Hendaya broke cleanly and the field began to string out.

She was filled with doubt and fear by the time the race ended. Montanez and Hendaya were nowhere to be found as the horses flashed across the finish line. Then came the call.

It was from Brittany Russell, the trainer who employs Labarre. “Chloe,” she said, “he went down.”

Hendaya, seemingly too headstrong for Montanez to handle, had clipped heels with a horse in front of her, causing both of them to fall. Hendaya rolled over Montanez before regaining her feet. Montanez was not so fortunate.

“It happened so fast,” Labarre said. “I didn't see it happen.”

They live five minutes from Laurel Park. Fortunately, medical help arrived so quickly that Montanez was already being rushed to the hospital by the time Labarre reached the track. She waited hours while her fiancé was evaluated. He would have full use of his extremities but was found to have a traumatic brain injury, a broken back, broken ribs and facial fractures.

Montanez is 30, two years older than Labarre. They never envisioned such hardship when they became engaged on Nov. 3, 2019. No one could have.

Montanez, one of three finalists for the Eclipse Award as North America's leading apprentice in 2011, underwent successful back surgery at R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore the next day. As Montanez spent the next two weeks recovering in intensive care, he understood as never before how strong a woman he had chosen as his future wife.

“Chloe is my rock, honestly. She is my everything,” he said. “If I wasn't with her, my life would be completely destroyed.”

Labarre found inner strength she never knew existed.

“I wasn't okay, but I was fine,” she said. “I was getting through it because he needed me to be there. I couldn't be the one falling apart, having a meltdown.”

She stayed at a hotel near the hospital in those critical early days before returning to work, even though Russell had urged her to take as much time as she needed.

“She reached out to me and said, 'I want to come back,'“ Russell recalled. “I was very surprised. But, at the same time, she loves what she does. I think it was a little bit of a sense of normalcy for her to get on horses and get back to the barn.”

Russell went on: “It's the nature of the business. Horse people, we don't really know how to take time off. It's kind of been bred into us to put your head down and go to work regardless of what is going on in your personal life.”

“I've loved horses since I was a little kid,” said Labarre after returning to the saddle following her fiance's racing injury. “They're my life.”

Labarre had grown up with horses and ridden at an early age. She has been an exercise rider since she was 16 and has worked for a series of prominent trainers, among them Hall of Famer Bill Mott, Chad Brown and Michael Matz.

Labarre never thought twice about returning to horseback, even after seeing firsthand how perilous that can be.

“I love it. I love horses,” she said. “I've loved horses since I was a little kid. They're my life.”

She had always been aware of the danger without experiencing it. “Thank God, I've never been injured badly on a horse,” she said. “I thank God for that right now because I don't want it to happen.”

While Montanez continues an encouraging recovery by attending physical therapy three days a week and talks hopefully about returning to competition, Labarre has helped make Russell one of the leading trainers at Laurel Park's fall meet.

“She is a huge asset in the barn for more reasons than one,” Russell said. “She gets along with pretty much anything she sits on and she's a good read of a horse. She can breeze horses. She works horses from the gate. She gets on babies. She helps older horses.”

Russell and Labarre enjoy much more than a typical employer-employee relationship. Russell arranged a GoFundMe account that ultimately raised more than $40,000 to benefit Montanez. Almost $3,000 poured in during the first hour.

“I have no words to say how thankful I am to them,” said Montanez.

Some good has come from the ordeal. If Labarre and Montanez had the slightest doubt about their relationship, they now know one thing with certainty. They are stronger together.

Tom Pedulla wrote for USA Today from 1995-2012 and has been a contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Blood-Horse, America's Best Racing and other publications.

If you wish to suggest a backstretch worker as a potential subject for In Their Care, please send an email to info@paulickreport.com that includes the person's name and contact information in addition to a brief description of the employee's background.

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Lost And Found Presented By LubriSynHA: Pickleball Replaces Ponies For Former Jockey Lively

Nearly three decades after riding in his final race, John Lively is still competitive, still athletic and still enjoying camaraderie. Instead of the racetrack, he and his wife Pat have found those same elements in playing pickleball, a hybrid of tennis, table tennis, and badminton.

“We play two, three, sometimes four hours a day,” he said. “We feel that it is good for our health to stay active and fit. It is fun and we enjoy meeting other people. It is very big in Florida and Arizona where we used to spend the winters and it is getting bigger all the time.”

The Livelys, married since 1961, now reside in Hot Springs, Ark., where their daughter, Patrice, works for the Arkansas Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association. Their son David has made a career as an assistant to nationally ranked trainers.

Lively's resume has 3,468 victories, including the 1976 Preakness Stakes aboard Elocutionist, who he guided to a third-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. His trophy collection includes the 1990 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award that “honors riders whose careers and personal character earn esteem for the individual and the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing.”

“At the time and still today it means an awful lot simply because I was elected by my fellow riders who I was competing against day in and day out,” he said. “It is meaningful that they chose me as a good role model even away from the racetrack.”

A regular at Oaklawn Park in winter, Ak-Sar-Ben in Omaha in summer and other tracks such as Louisiana Downs, Keeneland and Churchill Downs in between, Lively pocketed many riding titles while keeping steady statistics throughout his career. Recognizing that his opportunities were starting to dwindle, he strategically retired with no regrets.

“If I had still been winning two or three races a day, I would not have been ready but I was ready for something different,” he said.

That something different was far removed from Thoroughbred racing.

“We are both from northeast Oklahoma and we went back there and went into the cattle raising business,” he said. “Then an opportunity came along for a poultry raising operation. We did that for about three years along with the cattle. Then we got out of that and retired completely.”

They sold their house and traveled the country in their motor home for 10 years of summer sightseeing and winter sojourns in Arizona or Florida. While in Arizona in 2014, Lively developed health issues that affected his balance. The condition eventually was brought under control with medication and physical therapy but concern about relapses inspired them to cease traveling and move to Rogers, Ark. In 2019 they settled in Hot Springs, where Lively will occasionally go to the Oaklawn Park races to see old friends. He also gets that opportunity in various celebrations such as the inductions of former jockeys Tim Doocy and Ken Shino into the Nebraska Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame earlier this year. (Lively was inducted in 1979.)

A few win pictures decorate their home, most notably his scores on Bold Ego in the 1981 Arkansas Derby, Lets Dont Fight in the 1981 Arlington-Washington Futurity and Billy Jane in the 1980 Apple Blossom Handicap. Other winner's circle photos are kept out of sight but within easy reach to bring back memories of the workaday Thoroughbreds and people that blended to make traveling racetrackers a community. He especially notes the fraternity amongst the jockeys.

“Each and every one of us knows what we all went through to pursue this and be successful,” he said. “You know how tough it is for yourself, so it forms a bond knowing we all struggled to get there. And we spent so much time together. We were around each other in the mornings getting on horses and then in the jocks' room all afternoon every day. Some of us were around each other more than we were our own families.”

Family played a key behind-the-scenes role in Lively's success and life in general thanks to pickleball partner.

“Pat has kept me grounded and been a wonderful support even before I became a jockey,” he said. “It took me a long time to break in as a jockey. I rode in match races at (informal) 'bush' tracks but it was years before I got started at a pari-mutuel track. And she was wonderful about raising our kids more or less by herself while I was away riding and she would join me when the kids were out of school. Pat was very supportive the whole time — whatever I wanted to do, whatever ever I wanted to try, she was there.”

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‘My Freedom Only Really Came When I Asked For Help’: Da Silva Opens Up About Addiction In New Book

Former jockey Eurico Rosa da Silva has just released his new book entitled Riding For Freedom. The book follows his journey from a young boy with a big dream in a poor country to a seven-time recipient of Canada's outstanding jockey award, according to Canadian Thoroughbred. The crux of the book, however, lies in the inner demons that he battled along the way.

“When the opportunity came, I left,” da Silva said in an interview with Peter Gross on his podcast, Down The Stretch. “When I started riding in São Paulo, I was very lucky. I started winning a lot of races right away, making a lot of money. I started in Canada and I was successful. My freedom only really came when I asked for help.”

Da Silva retired from his career as a professional jockey a year ago to help athletes with their mental performance. The 45-year-old husband and father of two children now strives to help people with problems similar to his own. He opened up in his interview with Gross about his addictions and how he insisted that the book include them.

“I was a chronic sex addict and a chronic gambler, and I am not afraid to say that,” da Silva said to Gross. “My goal with my book is to motivate people to go for help.”