Away from the racecard, Tom Bellamy spoke to BOYLE Sports about the horror fall that kept him sidelined and the long road back to the saddle.
Bellamy has detailed the injuries that kept him out for ten weeks and praised the work of the Injured Jockeys Fund at Oaksey House .
The jockey has also explained why this weekend's Cheltenham meeting means so much to a local lad.
The Recovery
Talk Us Through Your Recovery Since Your Injury.
I couldn't grumble too much with the timing of it. It was the end of August, and I missed September and October, and with how dry it was this year, it wasn't the end of the world. It was a horrible injury, though.
Breaking my femur was probably my worst injury, but this was my worst in terms of complications. I was in hospital for six nights, came home for six, and went back in with an infection for seventeen nights.
My horse brought one down, and as that one was falling, I was the floor for it. I broke eleven ribs, punctured both lungs, broke both shoulders, and broke my chest bone. I was out for just under ten weeks.
I did my rehab at Oaksey House , and they're brilliant there; you've got everything you need, and it's all covered by the Injured Jockeys Fund . You have your personal trainers and a programme mapped out. It used to be the case, going back thirty years before my time, that jockeys, when they were injured, would smoke cigarettes, sit in a pub and drink pints until they were ready to go again. It can only help us in the long run to rehab properly, as much as I'd love to be sat in a pub.
Is Cheltenham the Proper Start of the Jumps Season?
You have your Chepstow opener, but that's always run on quite fast ground, which is becoming more of a thing with the climate now; they were all hurdles and some of the races weren't that competitive. By the time you get to now, the days are a bit shorter, and the moisture in the ground holds a bit better, so you've got a chance of seeing some better horses.
It's significant in the calendar, this meeting, and as a local, it's massive to me. I remember going there as a kid, bunking off school during the Festival to watch; we had a bookie, and we used to sit on a stool and watch the racing.
Cheltenham 's Cheltenham , isn't it? It's a special venue. I'm very lucky to compete there, but it's somewhere I'll go for the rest of my life even as a fan, because it's the best horses and the best racing. We're so privileged to get to go somewhere like that a few times a year.
The buzz in the weighing room all depends on what you're riding. If you're there on a no-hoper just making up the numbers, it's just another day, but if you go there with one of your big guns who might have a live chance, it definitely gets the blood pumping.
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