Jockey Luke Dittman set to return from injury to race for the first time in nearly three months

A racing hiatus stretching nearly three months will end for jockey Luke Dittman who will make his return at Gold Coast’s Chinese New Year race day.

A RACING hiatus stretching nearly three months will end for jockey Luke Dittman who will make his return at Gold Coast’s Chinese New Year race day.

Dittman has been battling back problems for over a year and it worsened to the point he was forced out of the saddle after a race meeting at Aquis Park on November 5 last year.

The 28-year-old said he aggravated it during work at his home track.

“A horse whipped around and dumped me,” Dittman said.

“It wasn’t a particularly bad fall but when I hit the ground I still had hold of the reins and it pulled me in the wrong direction.”

Jockey Luke Dittman on Desert Knight. Photograph: Jason O'Brien

Dittman said he will still require surgery on his vertebrae at some stage but is still trying to use fitness and added strength in his back to put it off for as long as possible.

“It’s holding up pretty well and I can’t do anymore damage to it,” Dittman said.

Dittman said he rose to 61kg in his break and still needed to lose 2kg to make the 57kg weight allocated to Spurious and Parlande for Saturday’s meeting.

The Pat Duff-trained Spurious is a $7.50 chance for the Maiden Plate (1800m) while Chris Waller’s Parlande is an outsider ($26) for the Maiden Handicap (1400m).

“I don’t know too much apart from their form but (Superious) is fit and well over 1800m, he should run a good race,” Dittman said.

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“Waller always has nice horses so it’s good to be on the back of one of his. I just hope I can win one on my first day back.”

Dittman said he enjoyed the downtime away from racing for less than a week before the itch to ride again kicked in.

“It’s always nice to get away when you are racing 24/7,” Dittman said.

“After four or five days of sitting by the pool I started to miss riding horses.

“I’m not happy about sweating it out and getting fit again but that’s part of it.”

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