LARRY'S VIEW - A POSITIVE EXAMPLE TO US ALL!

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, November 16, 2012

Larry Cassidy currently has forty-two Group 1 successes behind his name. He is a multiple Premiership winning jockey having taken out three titles in Sydney and one in Brisbane. Larry’s View, the personal blog of this top class rider will appear on horseracingonly.com.au every Friday, workload permitting.

I would like to add my humble praise to those jockeys who have overcome massive physical and mental hurdles in making a successful comeback to race riding after a serious fall.

Jason Hoopert, who is amongst that latest to achieve this feat, has justifiably received a large dose of positive publicity this week following his first Metropolitan win aboard the 30-1 outsider Mimics at Eagle Farm last Saturday.

Good on him!

I am in a position to put what Jason has managed to do into perspective.

I had a fall last year and was off for two months … which was the longest I had been out in my career ... and I know how hard it was for me to get back from that and all I had was four broken ribs and three undisplaced fractures in my leg which, realistically, compared to Jason Hoopert, was nothing!

All I had to do was just sit around and wait to for my body to heal. That was all I had to get through. There is no worry about the end result … no doubt that I would eventually be fit enough to get back in the saddle.

Yet I still found that to be both mentally draining and physically draining and to try and focus on getting back into it was incredible difficult.

Given his injuries and, even more particularly the excessive length of time on the sidelines … the years he spent away from the track … it does show how just how tough Jason is to be able to get back to where he is now after being told he would never ride again.

You know, I remember seeing something in the press about when he went back to Kilcoy, where he fell, and won a race there earlier in the year.

I thought, wow! That must have been a great moment for him … and now here is taking things one step further by scoring his first win in town.

I think the satisfaction for him, on the day, must have been like winning a Group race.

I must be honest when it happened I didn’t know it was his first win in town, but I heard that it was in the post race interview and I did go across and congratulate him.

Obviously he is an older jockey and to come back after such serious injury and to be able to ride your first winner in town … it is a great achievement and it’s nice that it is being recognized as such.

Kristy Banks, again on horseback barrel-racing after her horrendous fall at Toowoomba, is obviously another fine example of how mentally tough some people are.

The mental toughness has to be more than the physical toughness to get through something like that.

Kristy is just amazing. It shows you how much she wants it too.

To do something like that … I don’t know if I could do it.

Jason and Kristy are champions in their own right and they deserve every congratulation and every good wish that comes their way.

They, and others who have overcome similar odds, are doing themselves proud and stand as a positive example to us all.

Till next week,
Larry

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