Life As I Know It (14 page)

I tucked myself up in a tight bunch to try to protect myself, minimise the damage. The first horse missed me. I won that lottery. And the second and the third, even though, by then, I was being rolled along the course like a ball. I survived another, and another. Would I be lucky enough to survive them all? The last horse went past and I felt incredibly relieved—that's it, there's no more behind me!

What I didn't know, though, was that a good friend of mine, Jade Darose, was five lengths behind the field. She tried to dodge, but her horse stepped on me. I sat up on the track and gathered my bearings. I could move my legs. Phew! But I was in all-consuming pain. I could see the medical attendants running towards me.

‘I think I've broken my leg,' I called out. ‘I can feel the bone coming through the skin.'

They immediately put an air boot on me. It is the worst pain I've ever had; the skin was taut because my ankle was dislocated. For some reason I then had to wait forty minutes in the racecourse's
casualty room before an ambulance came to get me, and all I had was the green whistle, a hand-held device allowing me to inhale an emergency analgesic. I told them it was having no effect. I was in agony, shaking, sweating. They suggested I suck on it again, I did, but nothing. I threw it at the wall. When the ambulance came they intravenously injected morphine into me and knocked me out.

I woke up in casualty at the hospital as they were taking the air boot off, and the doctor explained the nature of the dislocation, and that I needed a knee reconstruction immediately. I don't know how long it took them to put me back together. But I was now out of racing for another three months.

When I returned I couldn't get the vision of my Greek Adonis fall—of crashing to the turf and being run over—out of my mind. During a race at Hamilton I felt genuinely frightened and you cannot race frightened. It's not fair to anyone. I was really troubled. For the first time I felt I might have to retire.

My family were supportive, suggesting that my reaction was understandable, and encouraged me to work through it. I went to see renowned sports psychologist, Lisa Stevens, who was also a counsellor at Racing Victoria. She had encountered this problem many times before and assured me it was easily fixed. The strategy she suggested was to repeat a single word over and over in the barriers to block out the fear. I used two, ‘win' or ‘straight'. To my amazement it worked.

I was very relieved.

W
ITH SO MANY
falls and so many injuries and my health always a topic of speculation—‘Should Michelle keep riding?' everyone kept asking—I was becoming frustrated by the interruptions to my career. I felt I had the motivation and direction but things just weren't going my way. I continued to wonder why I was so unlucky, and kept pestering the people closest to me to find an answer.

‘Ah well, when things are bad there's always something good round the corner,' Dad would say. He was in a difficult situation. He wanted to be supportive, but he needed to be protective.

The dangers of racing had been highlighted again in the winter of 2006, when not only had I had my nasty fall from Greek Adonis, but Brigid was involved in a barrier incident while working for trainer David Hayes, the son of Colin Hayes, at Euroa. She was airlifted to the Alfred Hospital and placed in an induced coma for a week. She returned to light duties at the Hayes stables.

Brigid, who was always a big character, had had a somewhat unsettled life, but had been happy in her new role. Not long after
our family came to Australia, and Mum had died, she'd left home to work with a different trainer. She rode for a while but then moved to Perth to take up a job as a journalist at a suburban newspaper with the prospect of also completing a university course in media studies. While in Perth, she and her boyfriend had a child, Sam. When things did not go so well she returned to Ballarat as a single parent. After a few endeavours, she worked for a number of trainers before settling on the position with David Hayes.

While working on light duties after the fall, Brigid suffered an aneurysm. She was taken straight to Shepparton Hospital. Dad drove across to visit her. Seeing she was stable, he was on the way Home to feed the horses when she went into cardiac arrest. He had no mobile phone.

The instant I heard the news of the cardiac arrest I raced to the hospital from Melbourne. She died that evening in January 2007. I then drove straight to Ballarat to tell Dad. He was still feeding the horses. It was a terrible time. Sam, who we are all so close to now, was fourteen at the time. It tore me apart to see him lose his mum. Dad took it very hard as well. His wife, newborn son Michael, and now his oldest child were all gone.

The congregation at the funeral service at St Patrick's Cathedral in Ballarat was enormous. Brigid was such a character. Inevitably the discussion turned to the dangers of racing. My brother Patrick spoke to the media afterwards, telling
The Age
newspaper, ‘You have to enjoy what you are doing or you'll just be unhappy. I think none of us are content sitting in the safety of a comfortable couch. The bond with horses is the same for all of us. We tried to talk Michelle out of becoming a jockey [after a serious fall] but she wasn't happy on the sidelines at all, and she wasn't [happy] until she started back riding again.'

I felt at times Dad really wanted me to give it away. The doctors' warnings were clear: another concussion injury could have a
serious impact on my health in the short and long term. Increasingly reports were coming out in America about sportspeople and the neurological and mental health issues that were plaguing them. Boxers. Footballers. Anyone in collision sports. Medical science was developing its understanding that concussion had serious implications. I had to live with that. I had to weigh up the risks.

But Dad knew how much being the best jockey I could be meant to me. He did not want me to go through life wondering what might have been. So he encouraged me to stick at it. But Patrick probably said it best in that interview when talking about my future: ‘If you're not doing what you really want to do, you're not living.'

We weren't scientists. We were horse people—trainers and jockeys—and we knew the best minds at the CSIRO weren't going to be applying for research grants to pursue an understanding of the chemistry of the magic of horse racing. We were better off talking with Father John Keane than them anyway. He was on our wavelength, especially after he'd backed the winner of the last race of the day and celebrated with a couple of whiskies. Father Keane was from Tipperary, horse country, the home of Dermot Weld and his horses Vintage Crop, which had won the Melbourne Cup for Micky Kinnane in 1993, and Media Puzzle, which had won in 2002. Horse racing helped Father Keane understand what went on in the human heart, what mattered to people, and what grace and fortune were.

Me? I just wanted continuity, a run of reasonable luck, even neutral luck if there's such a concept, a run that allowed me to improve to the point where I could at least feel like I was starting to become the jockey I believed I could be. The luck of the Irish would do, as ironic as that concept might have been. I had my doubters, and my detractors, but I just wanted a chance to give my best. If it wasn't good enough—well, that wasn't the worst thing,
because at least I would know I'd given it a real crack. It was like being caught in the pack, bolting, but unable to get a clear run.

I was trying to be really disciplined, working incredibly hard on all the physical elements of being a jockey—good diet to keep my weight right, which was always a major challenge; fitness, aerobic and strength; and technique, constantly discussing that with those around me. I slept well. But just as I was building momentum, and just as I was winning the confidence of trainers and owners, and the respect of those who mattered to me, and of fair-minded punters who follow racing closely, I would have a setback. A fall, literally.

I'd then have to have three months or so off, during which time I just wasn't as disciplined. But who would be when the lifestyle of a jockey is so unnatural? You go out more, you eat more. There's no
immediate
reason to resist the temptation of something as simple as a banana smoothie, or even the basic chocolate milkshake that has been a favourite of many a Payne. There was no
immediate
reason to push myself on the bike along the Maribyrnong. I was rarely totally carefree, though, because I knew how hard it would be to return to racing weight and fitness.

Once my injuries were healed and I had been through physios and received the all-clear from the doctors, I'd be in the comeback part of the cycle. That was always intense because I had ground to make up and I had to push myself, trying to catch up. I was impatient. I wanted to accelerate the process, to get to where I wanted to be more quickly than I should have. So I would get tired and rundown, and a little off colour. And when I'm not quite right, that's when something would happen on the track. It's like being a boxer who goes into the ring only three-quarters fit—it's dangerous. Later in my career I have become more conscious of the warning signs and I have learned when it's time to have a break.

As frustrating as it was, during that spate of falls, it did allow me to get away from Australia from time to time. I love to travel. I have
always been fascinated to see how people live, what they do, what matters to them. What's different? What's the same? Seeing how cultures have developed in response to life and its challenges and questions. So for a few years I got into a bit of a routine of spending the miserable Melbourne winters overseas.

I had heard about the Lake St Moritz White Turf race meetings, which are held each February, and I thought it would be fun to ride. I contacted the organisers and explained I was a young jockey from Australia, that my mother was Swiss and I was intrigued by their festival. They invited me over. My school friend Liz Francis was living in Amsterdam at the time and she came too. Racing on a frozen lake is quite an experience. So is skijoring, which are races where horses pull people on skis. The event attracts the rich and famous from around Europe and we were treated by the wealthy guests, taken out to dinner, with Liz and I looking like a couple of backpackers among the glitterati. When we pulled out our 20 euros to help pay for the lavish dinner, everyone just waved us away. They were very welcoming and generous.

I also visited my mother's home village of Aufiberg in the Swiss Alps, four hours from St Moritz by train. The trip was spectacular and I was captured by the beauty of the place. Although no relatives live in Aufiberg now, some of my cousins met me at the site where the Buhler home once stood. It was great to be there, with them.

After he won the Melbourne Cup, Cathy and Kerrin McEvoy were married. Kerrin became the stable jockey for Godolphin Racing, the worldwide racing enterprise of the Al Maktoum family, the royal family of Dubai, who are besotted by horses and horse-racing. With the massive financial resources available, Godolphin is at the very top end of the racing game, very different from our down-on-the-farm facilities, albeit, that's what we love about Home. Godolphin has complexes in Dubai, Newmarket in England, and in Sydney and Melbourne. Everything is the very best. From stables
for the horses to veterinary services to the private training facilities, the operation is superb, and expensive.

Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is the head of state in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, has a deep affection for horses and loves racing, and is desperate to have in his palace the most sought-after trophies in world racing. The Melbourne Cup, which has eluded him, is probably number one on his list. The family has come close a number of times, with Crime Scene, for instance. Their approach, apart from running a first-class racing operation, is to remove as many of the chance elements as possible. If only it was that simple!

Why does a horse win the Melbourne Cup? Who knows the minds of the racing gods? In 2000 Kerrin was just twenty when he produced a fantastic ride on Brew to win. Given his talent, and his ongoing success, a few years later Kerrin was invited to ride for Godolphin, initially in Dubai and then at Newmarket—so different from Streaky Bay on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula where he grew up. Occasionally I would visit Cathy and Kerrin, wherever they were. I saw them in Dubai in 2004, and that's when I first met Frankie Dettori, another of Godolphin's jockeys.

In 2008, I visited them again at Newmarket, the famous horse-racing town just north of London, a few kilometres from Cambridge. I love being there. It is just beautiful. The stables are nestled among stately trees, and grounds with gardens. The Godolphin complex is made up of the century-old Stanley stables built by Frederick Stanley, the sixteenth Earl of Derby, and a complex known as Moulton Paddocks.

I love the feel of history, the sense of permanence. That people have and still share the same passion; they speak a common language. I love that the estate attracts people who are into horses and racing, from England and Ireland and around the world. Some stay, totally infatuated by the place. Everything that they've ever
hoped for is there. It's not just Newmarket either. There are racing towns all over England, Ireland and France, and their carnivals are legendary, just as they are in Australia. So, when people descend on Warrnambool in south-western Victoria for the annual three-day carnival, you can understand its origins, even if Warrnambool has such an Australian flavour.

Cathy worked for the successful trainer James Fanshawe at Pegasus Stables at Newmarket. She got me a job there, too. James was a character. Everyone called him Gov'ner. He didn't really insist, it was just the way it was. Imagine calling a trainer in Australia ‘Gov'ner'. Not one for lords and station, I couldn't bring myself to do it. It was a spectacular place to work and it didn't feel like work. It was more like spending pleasant days with people who've spent a lifetime developing their craft, and trying to understand what it means to live with horses.