Paul Hanagan defies odds to make it back for Ebor Festival

The former champion jockey does so in the belief that he has never been stronger thanks to the NHS staff – and rehab experts at Jack Berry House in Malton – who have nursed him back to fitness.

He rides at Beverley tomorrow before lining up at this week’s Ebor Festival at York where he has enjoyed so much success for his principal trainer, Richard Fahey.

“It’s been the hardest six months of my life. It was touch and go whether I would make it back,” Hanagan told The Yorkshire Post. “But I don’t think I’ve ever been as fit in all my career.”

Words that have even more resonance given how Hanagan pushed himself to the physical limit to secure his title successes in 2010 and 2011, he has been out of action since his mount Requinto Dawn came down at Newcastle on February 15.

Still unsure whether the horse clipped heels with the horse in front, or stumbled in a freak accident, he instantly knew that he was in trouble because there is no ‘give’ in the unforgiving all-weather surface. “When I hit the floor, I new straight away because I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get my breath. I’m thinking I’ve done my kidney and that won’t be too bad,” he said.

“I wanted to get up, and couldn’t get up, and that was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. I couldn’t move my feet at first – you can’t imagine what was going through my head.”

Rushed to Newcastle Royal Infirmary by ambulance – medics were fearful of internal injuries – scans revealed three separate fractures to Hanagan’s vertebrae.

The most serious was to his T6 vertebra between the shoulder blades – it had been completely crushed by the fall’s impact. Yet, while doctors wanted to give the injuries time to heal, Hanagan eventually underwent keyhole surgery which saw a special cement used to fuse the damaged bones back together.

He was also warned in Newcastle’s hospital that it would be a year before he could ride again. “The bog-standard arrogance of a jockey wasn’t going to let that happen,” said Hanagan.

While he will always be in the debt of spinal surgeon Daniel Fagan, and his team, the jockey’s recovery coincided with the Covid-19 lockdown – and the trauma of helping ‘home school’ his two children while his wife Anna juggled her work at Fahey’s yard.

However, the reopening of Jack Berry House, the Injured Jockeys Fund centre, provided salvation and a new-found appreciation of the help available to riders.

Its team put in place tailor-made exercises to help Hanagan, 39, regain his strength, and posture, before he resumed riding on the gallops three weeks ago. He has already been buoyed by the camaraderie at the Fahey yard.

For the first time, he has actually put on weight and feels stronger for his endeavours in the gym. He hopes to record his 2,000th career winner by the end of the year – he’ i just 24 victories shy of the landmark – and re-establish himself as one of the weighing room’s pre-eminent riders.

He does so with the realisation that he is the lucky one. “It’s just been a very character-building five or six months, but luckily I have had good support,” added Hanagan. “Everyone moans about the NHS at times, but they couldn’t have been better. I look back to when I was lying on my back and being unable to move my toes. Just to get back on a horse, at times I didn’t think it was ever going to happen.”

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