Jockey Danny Cook fighting to save eyesight and career

He made the decision immediately after Definitly Red, a horse integral to his career, fell in Newcastle’s Rehearsal Chase. He cited medical reasons for giving up two rides at Carlisle on Sunday.

Cook had returned to the saddle on November 21 just weeks after suffering a fractured eye socket in a horror fall. He required 60 stitches to facial injuries following a fall at Market Rasen in which he was kicked in the face by a pursuing horse.

But the jockey, who has built a strong association with Yorkshire trainers Sue Smith and Brian Ellison, has conceded that he is currently unable to do justice to his rides because of impaired vision during races.

“I’m going to take time out to get myself sorted – it’s just one of those things,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

“If they operate, there’s an 80 per cent chance my sight will be even worse so I need to weigh up all the options.

“Hopefully, I will know more in the next week. If it doesn’t get better, I will not return.”

Cook denied widespread weighing room speculation that he had already chosen to retire. “People are going to say what they are going to say,” he went on.

“Mentally, I am good to go and I am confident and strong. But the vision is very much impaired when I go into a jump – it’s not helping.

“I have got to look after myself. If I can’t ride at my best, I must get myself sorted. Whatever happens, I have had a good innings and hopefully it is not the end.

“Time will tell. I have just got to take time to get it right because I don’t feel I am riding to the best of my ability as things stand.”

Ellison said that the jockey had told him that he was “finished” after the ride on Definitly Red, a former winner of Wetherby’s Charlie Hall Chase, at Newcastle.

The Malton trainer says the horse appears sound after a fall which saw the multiple Grade Two winner, and former Cheltenham Gold Cup contender, slither along the turf. He says Definitly Red could reappear at Christmas.

The Rehearsal Chase was ultimately won by the resurgent Yorkhill for Sandy Thomson and former Grand National-winning jockey Ryan Mania, who was recording his most significant win since he made his own comeback from retirement just over a year ago.

A multiple Grade One winner with Willie Mullins, Yorkhill had badly lost his way in the last two seasons after successive wins at the Cheltenham Festival seemingly had left him destined for greatness.

Golfing star Lee Westwood took over ownership with friend David Armstrong, from their mutual acquaintance Sir Graham Wylie, and sent him to be trained in the Scottish Borders by Thomson.

“I think he just needed the personal touch – they’ve given him a bit of time to nurture him back to where he was,” eulogised an emotional Westwood. “I was at Cheltenham the day he beat Yanworth, and I got a real feel he was back to that sort of form.

“His ears were pricked, he loved his jumping, and when they came at him he went away again – he was even racing the loose horse at the end. I was in tears.”

Champion Hurdle heroine Epatante confirmed her class by landing the Grade One Fighting Fifth Hurdle in scintillating style – Micky Hammond’s Cornerstone Lad, the 2019 winner, was a non-runner because of the quick ground.

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