Australia-wide, Riders Remember Fallen Comrades

The Sunday Age

Sunday September 14, 2008

Stephen Howell

"I'M A bit peeved off," said former jockey Lonagan Milham's text message to Victorian Jockeys Association chief executive Des O'Keeffe. "Meant to be getting a lift with Logan McGill today but his ride scratched of T. Noonan's late this morning so didn't come to the races."

O'Keeffe read the message to The Age a couple of minutes after getting it, and that was just after the Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes, the 3.05pm race at Moonee Valley yesterday, one of a group Australia-wide this weekend dedicated to jockeys "who have suffered severe life-changing injuries as a result of their job".

Craig Williams, Victoria's champion jockey for the past three seasons, won the group 2 race on a horse called Guillotine, who emerged as a big cups chance this spring. All jockeys in the Dato Tan had red armbands, and Williams' was for Milham, badly injured when speared into the turf in a fall at Hanging Rock on Australia Day, 2003.

Brenton Primmer, Malcolm Pay, Leigh Woodgate and Scott Leckey were among the injured represented by the race riders - Primmer's jock, Dan Brereton, was beaten a long neck on Casual Pass, and another neck away third was Nash Rawiller on Tears I Cry. Like Williams, Rawiller rode for Milham.

The third man was the big winner of the day, flying in to his home state from Sydney, where he now rides for Gai Waterhouse, to win the group 1 Manikato Stakes on Typhoon Zed and the group 2 Stocks Stakes on Tuesday Joy.

Rawiller's successes are the upside of racing, a sport/industry that warns all those involved that they ride with danger, in races and at track work. No one knows this better than seven-times Melbourne premiership winner Damien Oliver, whose father Ray was killed in a race crash and older brother Jason died after a track fall. Oliver, who had 15 months out after breaking his back in a race fall at the Valley in 2005, won the first yesterday on Benatar.

Milham, 26, will not get back to riding, but has made a remarkable recovery from death's door to potter around his father Kevin's stables at Sale. He spends time with his dad and mum Linda in Gippsland as well as at his house at Mornington. He often goes to the races, and his text message yesterday explained that his "chauffeur" McGill, an apprentice jockey at Mornington, was a scratching because his one mount had been injured that morning.

Williams said after his win that Red Armband Day, promoting the jockeys' "Racing for our Lives" campaign for a 1% pay rise to 6% of prizemoney, with the increase to pay for insurance nationwide, was for a great cause. "For the whole of Australia to get behind the jockeys association to designate a couple of races throughout the country shows you how important this is and how much camaraderie there is," the winner said.

"And, probably more importantly, it shows just how much respect everyone has for the life we live as professional jockeys.

"My win was dedicated to Lonagan Milham. I've had a little bit to do with Lonagan - he bought a set of my saddles when he was apprenticed in Gippsland. He comes to the races now and we joke about him being a steward, and that on the other side of the fence the rules change."

Ross Inglis, chairman of the Australian Jockeys Association, said doctors considered turning off Milham's life support after the fall that caused brain damage and loss of peripheral vision. "He potters around at home with Kevin," Inglis said. "He comes to the races a bit, that's about all he really does.

"He had a settlement from his damage action, but didn't get a lot of out of that. He is on WorkCover payments. And he'll stay on WorkCover payments indefinitely. He's probably not likely to work again, he certainly won't ride again.

"We're talking about someone who can lead a reasonably normal life, so he has done remarkably well. But he's very young and has a long way to go."

O'Keeffe rang Milham after getting his text. "Lonny said he's extremely disappointed, apparently it (McGill's mount Our Montague) rolled in the box and hurt itself, but when I told him Craig had dedicated the ride to him he was absolutely rapt. He thought it was wonderful that Craig would do that," O'Keeffe said.

"I told him they (the races) are on again next Saturday, so come along."

Inglis said Red Armband Day was very important to the seriously injured riders, who can be forgotten when the 306 jockeys killed in 150 years of Australian racing are remembered.

© 2008 The Sunday Age

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