‘You think you’re invincible, but it was just one hurdle too far’

Twenty years ago Sharron Murgatroyd was well on her way to becoming one of the country’s finest champion lady jockeys. But a fall at the final hurdle at Bangor-on-Dee left her paralysed from the neck down.

The accident shattered her hopes of ever racing again. Yet she has stubbornly refused to sit around feeling sorry for herself. On July 30 she is organising a party to mark the 20th anniversary of the accident which she has jokingly titled the “I shouldn’t be here” party.

Following the fall, doctors told her she may not live another 20 years. Yet the Halifax-born jockey has since proven to be one the toughest heroines in the racing circuit, writing four books and raising thousands of pounds for charity.

It was a beautiful sunny day in August 1991 when her racing world collapsed. At the time she was one of the most promising lady riders in the sport and was riding her horse, Independent Air, over the last hurdle when it fell, tossing her to the ground.

“It was just one hurdle too far,” she says, speaking from her home in Newmarket.

“At first I didn’t realise how serious it was. I’d had falls before. I fell off a pony when I was 11 and broke my ankle. I’d had injuries and you just pick yourself up, dust yourself down, get back on and carry on.”

The horse walked away uninjured, while Sharron , in excruciating pain, was taken to Wrexham Hospital. She was later transferred to the Midlands Centre for Spinal Injuries.

“That evening the doctor told me I had actually broken my neck and it was highly unlikely that I would ever walk again,” she recalls. “I just lived for my riding. I was determined to be a champion. You think you’re invincible and it’s a joy to get up in the morning and go out and do something that you love. If you go into jump racing, you are fully aware of the injuries that go on. Everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, but then it does.”

After spending half a year in hospital, she gradually came to terms with her new life as a tetraplegic, which basically means she had lost the use of four limbs. But the vivacious Yorkshire lass refused to wallow.

Following the accident she discovered a gift for writing. “I realized that I did have a brain,” she laughs. With the use of a specially-adapted keyboard, she has been able to write four books.

“I have supports for my fingers and I can tap away on the computer. With the first book it was literally with one hand. Then my other arm moved just a small amount, although as I’ve got older, the wear and tear has become more restrictive and I have two people who come in and help do the typing.”

Her first book was Jump Jockeys Don’t Cry, which recounts her life growing up in Yorkshire along with details of her life-shattering accident. It has sold well and is now in its fourth edition. Next came a book of poems called Nil Desperandum, followed by a children’s book, Pony Days, illustrated by Newmarket artist, Jackie Jones. Ten years ago she published her autobiography, On the Other Side of the Fence, with proceeds going to the Injured Jockeys Fund. At her bungalow in Newmarket, Sharron, now 51, is in the early stages of writing her fifth book, a novel.

She fell into the exciting world of horse racing after leaving school with little idea of what to do next. She had enjoyed an idyllic childhood, getting a pony at the age of three and riding it around the countryside near her home in Halifax.

“I think I only had one horse riding lesson. My childhood friend Anne and I just used to jump on and ride around the field and then we started to enter some shows.”

Unsure what to do after leaving school; it was a family friend who suggested she should try her hand at horse racing. She wrote to a stables in Doncaster and was given a summer job there, before landing a position with prestigious handlers Tony and Monica Dickinson at their stables in Gisburn, Lancaster.

“I was very fortunate because it was an excellent place and they took me on for a month’s trial and that was it. Once I started riding I got bitten by the bug.”

Eventually she became an assistant trainer and moved to Newmarket in 1981. She started to take part in serious races at the age of 22 and was one of a select few female jump jockeys.

“It was brilliant. I raced with Clare Balding and Princess Anne. I was very, lucky. I had some really good trainers and some lovely horses. My aim was to become a champion. I would’ve loved that. I came back to Ripon and won the Ladies’ Derby, it was great coming back to Yorkshire.”

She rode 14 winners; seven National Hunt races and seven on the Flat. Her career even took her to the races in Vienna on a couple of occasions.

“I raced a lot of racehorses throughout the UK. I was just starting to get some really good horses to ride.”

She was cruelly cut down in her prime on that fateful day in August 20 years ago. Yet even though she now has to rely on a team of support workers providing 24-hour care, she still manages to look on the bright side.

“There is life in a wheelchair. It doesn’t just stop. You can achieve immense things.”

Alongside her writing, she has enjoyed raising funds for the Injured Jockeys Fund, including parachuting out of a plane at 10,000 feet. Other charity work has involved retracing the steps of her accident at Bangor-on-Dee in a wheelchair push with champion jockey Tony McCoy.

The event raised an impressive £40,000 for the Midlands Spinal Unit. Sharron has been invited to join several Injured Jockey Holidays to Tenerife, where she even learnt to scuba dive.

“It’s amazing what you can learn to do,” she says. “It was lovely being under the water. It’s a bit like when you’re out on the gallop in a race. You just have tunnel vision and you’re just in a world of your own.”

Despite everything though, riding remains her passion.

“The thing I miss the most is the riding,” she says. For a while she took part in horse and trap rides, though she hasn’t ridden for a few years now. “

However, she still owns a horse at the stables next to her home, and for the past year, she has been teaching some local children to ride. “It’s brought me great pleasure and I’m just pleased that I can do something like that. I’ve got one young girl, Elisa, who did her first show last Sunday and she did really well. I’ve really enjoyed teaching her the basics, whether it’s cleaning the tack or the affinity that you can share with a horse.”

She still enjoys watching the races and has a good social life with racing friends, confessing she was out until 2am at an awards ceremony the night before. “One part of your life stops, but another part starts,” she says. “It was just another challenge.”