Jack Berry: The man helping injured jockeys back into the saddle

HORSES have been in Jack Berry’s blood from the moment he started riding his family’s trap ponies in the back streets of Leeds where he was born in October 1937.

The young Jack would not hesitate to skip school, cycle to Wetherby races, climb the fence with secret home-made sandwiches in his back pocket and head for the marauding “open ditch in the straight with my Sporting Life”.

“I never went to the start right up by the Grandstand because I thought my clothes weren’t smart enough to be seen in near the paddock,” he once recalled.

The jockey hoping to go from intensive care to Aintree in just two months

His riding career was characterised by more falls than wins while the weighing room’s unique camaraderie saw him organise bucket collections after his friend and fellow Yorkshire jockey Paddy Farrell was paralysed from a fall in the 1964 Grand National.

This was the precursor to the Injured Jockeys Fund, now renowned globally for the support and benevolence offered to past and present riders when the going gets tough, not least 2009 champion apprentice Freddy Tylicki – previously based in Ryedale – who was left paralysed after a hideous fall on the Flat at Kempton 10 days ago.

Yet it was Berry’s own fall, from selling hurdler Big Star at Wetherby in 1967, that led to him beginning a long crusade to build specialist centres – first in Lambourn and now Malton – to help riders with their recovery.

“As I was cantering down to the post, an ambulance was making its way down the course. On the side of it were the words ‘J Berry’, just like on the number boards in the paddock,” he said. “Sure enough, the horse fell and I broke my leg. As I lay near the hurdle, a young St John Ambulance lad came over in a bit of a flap. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked. I’ve broken my leg, mate. There’s nothing you can about it, just give me a fag. Put your arms under my shoulders and pull me under that rail on the inside of the track, out of the way of the horses next time round.”

When he did get to hospital, X-rays revealed that Berry’s leg was broken in five places around the knee and he soon made a very successful switch to the training ranks.

And it was on his own road to recovery that he had a moment of enlightenment which led, almost five decades later, to Jack Berry House which was officially opened by the Princess Royal in June 2015.

“The racecourse doctors said there was no way my leg would mend,” said Berry while standing proudly beside his statue at the house that he built by cajoling benefactors into donating £50 for a brick. “I went to see the doctor in Harley Street, London and he got me going to this gym in Camden Town where the dockers were sent to get better. I was riding this bike at 40mph. I was in this gym, running and swimming, and I was the only one there - all these dockers were layabouts who didn’t want to get fit to go back to work. They said I was stupid.

“This was the moment I decided we had to have something like this for the jockeys. It took me three years to get the Oaksey House plans approved by the IJF and then I wanted something for the lads, and girls, in the North. It’s brilliant. It’s just like a home. People are here longer-term, other riders pop in to use the facilities or have some physio. Henry Brooke, who punctured his lung and broke his ribs, he’s helping answer the phones if the manager is busy. There’s a special spirit because everyone wants to get better and get back racing.

“It cost £3.5m to build, but I’m determined to raise £300,000 a year to pay for the upkeep. And I will.”

As such, racing will always be in Jack Berry’s debt as he enters his 80th year. Still working tirelessly, what gives him the greatest satisfaction of all is knowing that racing is doing everything that it can to help those riders whose lives, and careers, can change in an instant while doing a sport they love.