TWO SCARY MOMENTS, TWO HAPPY ENDINGS

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, September 8, 2009

The Stewards Report for any race meeting, by necessity, is often an abbreviated account of events. Most times little is lost in translation but, on occasions, a simple couple of sentences does not quite give the full picture. Not that it needs to, but when two difficult moments lead to two happy endings the incidents are worth revisiting.

On Saturday at Eagle Farm there were two particularly scary moments. One was resolved in an instant by the mere flick of a hand. The other took more than twenty-four hours to settle on a favourable outcome.

The first scare came directly after the jockeys had weighed in after the first race. The Steward Report states: ‘After riding in race 1, K. Pope was examined by the club's doctor and stood down from his remaining engagements.’

Winning jockey Ken Pope, who had ridden a superb tactical race on D’Elcatraz weighed in, gave a post race interview and then headed straight for the doctor’s room. The urgency with which the doctor then reported to the Stewards who summoned the on-course paramedics and the flurry of activity that then took place inside the cramped medical quarters projected the concern for Pope.

The word filtered out that he was severely distressed and was complaining of chest pains. Pope received on-going treatment at the track. Then he was stretchered out to a waiting ambulance and taken to hospital which did little to alleviate the concern for the rider.

There were serious options in play at that time as to what had caused Pope’s distress. It took a couple of days and a barrage of tests to get to the bottom of the matter before the situation could finally have a positive ending.

Speaking earlier today, Ken Pope’s wife, Helen, was kind enough to give HRO the latest up-date on her husband’s situation.

Helen Pope: “Yeah, no, it’s all good. He’s good. He is just having the rest of this week off and then he will be back at track-work next week.

“He’s had all the tests. Lots of blood tests, because apparently even if you have even a mild heart attack the heart will put something in the bloodstream. They did all of the blood tests and they all came back clear. Then on Sunday morning, before he left hospital, they did a stress test on his heart. They did that on a treadmill ... and all that was fine.

“So we just have to put it down to the fact that he had to lose a little bit of weight to ride on Saturday, so it was probably just dehydration and, yeah, and the stress on the body pushing too hard. But it’s all good now.”

The second scare came in the fifth race, but you would have missed it if you blinked. The Stewards Report reads: ‘Near the 1600m, when racing in restricted room, Charvicky (M. Speers) shifted in and away from Jedi Starfighter (M. Cahill) and made contact with the hind quarters of Shuffle The Cash (C. McIver). Shuffle The Cash then shifted outward, turning the hind quarters of Charvicky out towards Jedi Starfighter, resulting in M. Speers almost being dislodged from Charvicky when the horse became unbalanced. When unbalanced, C. McIver, rider of Shuffle The Cash, assisted M. Speers to regain his balance.’

Any fall bears possible nasty consequences for the rider, particularly when racing in such a tight situation, so the McIver backhand pick-up of his fellow apprentice was an important save. The young rider takes up the story.

Apprentice jockey Chris McIver: “Yeah, Speers was racing right beside me and ... we were tight. His clipped heels in front a little bit. It looked like he was travelling really good and I don’t know if his horse just raced up there or he bumped me and just got off balance.

“Yeah, I don’t know if his saddle shifted or whatever and he just seemed to start falling off on my side. It was at the point that he couldn’t get back on himself and it looked like he was going to fall off. I just gave him a push ... all he needed was a push ... a little push to get back on top. There was nothing to think about. I just saw he needed a push so I gave him a push. He was alright then.”

Then on they raced with most people being totally unaware of what had taken place.

McIver and Speers are in fact ‘stable-mates’. Both riders are apprenticed to trainer Liam Birchley.

Two worrying situations. Thankfully both ended well.

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