An expectant mum and a battered vet

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of our new edition in the yard, now a week overdue. Our lovely three- time winning mare is heavily in foal. According to the vet it could be another week.

Every year she does the same, ensuring I have a few wakeful nights until finally she is forced to pop it out during the minimal time my head is not peeking over the door. Her self-denial about motherhood does not surprise me. Immensely able on the track, she never had much patience when she was in training and was not one to suffer fools lightly. Anyone she didn't like on her back she'd give a quick leap and deposit them well away from her with a snort and a withering "learn to ride before you come near me again" look. We got on well. I understood her and she tolerated me. I loved riding her, she was a professional and she knew it.

I can almost sense her sigh telling me she could do without another little devil running her ragged for three months. She'd prefer to be at the races.

Motherhood was a harsh realisation for such a strong- minded individual. Yet when her foal arrives the protective, gentle maternal side will transform her to a devoted dam.

The sprightly yearling she produced last season may not be cavorting round my pasture quite so confidently soon. The vet is coming to castrate him. He has got a bit colty recently and we need to turn him out with others so the deed must be done.

One of the vets has been in the wars. He arrived this week to inject a horse sporting a bruised cheek bone, black eye and ripped ear lobe after a tussle with a cob the previous day.

I enquired if his earring had been ripped out –of the hooped variety judging by the wound. As a professional surgeon he didn't exactly fall about laughing.

He could barely open his jaw to speak so I gave him a twirly straw in his cup of tea which seemed to pacify him. He'd been trying to inject a three-year old cob that had not been handled much. The owner held the twitch on its nose but let go, the cob reared up and boxed him in the face with its front legs. He was lucky, another inch and it could've fractured his skull.

While he muttered his dislike of cobs and owners who can't control their animals I realised the similarity in our vocations.

A vet will never trust an animal but has to have confidence in his client to ensure the well-being of the animal, a jockey must do the same.

They put faith in the trainers once aboard a horse, fully trusting the mount will be well schooled and safely prepared for the experience.

A well known figure on the Yorkshire racing circuit is currently laid up in Pinderfields hospital following a skiing accident in Aviemore.

Edward Wilkin, 50, from Hessay, best known as the jovial owner of Bang and Blame, was enjoying his first run of the holiday in Aviemore. He attempted to avoid a pile up and hit a rock at the side of the piste. Airlifted to hospital with a suspected broken neck, seven weeks later he is gradually gaining slight movement back in his hands and feet. Always the optimist "Wilkie" is keen to find a better use for his skis –"there's a hole in the post and rail fence next to my house" he laughs.

Get well soon Wilkie. I hear he is enjoying the bed baths at least!

Yorkshire champion lady jockey Jo Foster trains horses at Brookleigh Farm, Menston, West Yorkshire.