Jockey Brad Rawiller edging closer to return after neck injury
No jockey ever wants to hear what injured hoop Brad Rawiller’s four-year-old son said just weeks into the Group 1-winning rider’s three-month stint in a neck brace.
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NO jockey ever wants to hear what injured hoop Brad Rawiller’s four-year-old son said just weeks into the Group 1-winning rider’s three-month stint in a neck brace.
It shattered Rawiller, who sustained two “compressed” neck fractures (to C4 and C5) and collarbone broken “at both ends” in a horrific race fall at Cranbourne on October 21, when Lucas uttered words to the effect: “I don’t want to ride again, I don’t want to be like dad”.
“That was hard for me,” Rawiller told the Sunday Herald Sun.
“I haven’t heard him say it again but that initial part — he was against me riding horses and himself too — I was pretty (devastated) because that’s been my life.
“Obviously it had an effect on him.”
There is light at the end of the tunnel, however, for Rawiller, wife Carolyn and children Cleo, 7, and Lucas, 4, with an appointment at The Alfred on Wednesday where it is hoped the 40-year-old will get the green light to remove the neck brace.
The 23-time Group 1-winning jockey is “blessed”, on several fronts, firstly, to be able to recover fully from the injuries, which included a medial ligament strain and deep cuts to the face and leg, but also to have had wife and racing manager Carolyn ride shotgun throughout the three-month ordeal.
With Rawiller forced into sloth-like existence, restricted to eating, sleeping and watching television (binge-watching “brilliant” historical drama Vikings), the working mother-of-two has doubled as a nurse, carer, chauffeur, personal assistant and housekeeper.
“My family has been everything,” Rawiller said.
“It’s obviously been tough on me, but it’s been hard on ‘Caz’ too.
“Caz has had to look after me and still look after the kids, and keep the homestead ticking over, trying to keep it normal and it’s not normal, so it’s been pretty hard.”
While Rawiller is itching to get active again the Caulfield Cup and Golden Slipper-winner is under no illusion either about his close call at Cranbourne, which incidentally he has no memory of after being unconscious on the track for “six or seven minutes”.
The first 24-48 hours after the fall are “shady” — to this day.
“I just remember, just basically, (thinking) ‘I’m f---ed’,” Rawiller said.
“The horse in front of me shifted and my horse didn’t respond.
“Certainly is scary (in hindsight) when you think I hit the ground (and) I wasn’t breathing when they got to me. At the end of the day, forgetting about the neck (injury), I could’ve had brain damage, I could’ve had bleeding on the brain.
“I’m lucky in that sense … you think of Tye Angland and Maija Vance … I can’t imagine what he’s going through, what his family is going through, to think the prospect of never walking again, it’d be horrendous.”
Star jockey Angland could be left a quadriplegic after a horror fall in Hong Kong on November 25, while New Zealand rider Vance suffered serious spinal injuries last September.
Rawiller was initially told he could be back riding within three months but those plans were aborted on December 5 when a scan showed a “crooked” C4 vertebrae.
A further scan, the following week, returned a positive result but the decision was made to “play it safe”.
Rawiller, who hovered around 57-58kg before the fall, has piled on the weight since, now tipping the scales at 69kg.
The road back to full fitness starts Wednesday, pending doctors’ orders.
“I love running so when I can get out and do that I’m sure the weight will come down,” Rawiller said.
“As far as that last five kilograms, it’s going to be more than just running, I’m going to have to diet, do it a bit tough, but it’s not something I don’t know, it’s been my life.”
Rawiller, if all goes to plan, could be back riding track work before the end of February.
“Until I get on a horse’s back (that’s) when I’ll have a really good idea,” Rawiller said.
“It will be down to my own mindset, when I can get the fitness.
“Three months without race riding, it doesn’t matter how much you do on the ground it just doesn’t compare to fitness on the horse but muscle memory will come quick.”
Jockeys are resilient by nature and Rawiller, the son of Keith, a former jumps jockey who notoriously fell and then rode in the next race with a broken collarbone, is definitely a chip off the old block.
Accordingly, the reply to a question about whether any doubts had crept in during the painstaking recovery was to be expected.
“No. No. After it happened I was coming back in two-and-a-half months,” Rawiller said.
“It’s my life, I wouldn’t be doing anything else.”
2019 TAB NATIONAL JOCKEYS TRUST T20 CRICKET FUNDRAISER
Rawiller will trade the willow and pads this year for the special comments microphone in the February 21 celebrity fundraiser at Williamstown Oval from 12pm-4pm. The NJT supports the jockeys and families of those who have suffered serious or fatal injuries in the saddle.
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