Racing: Back trouble ends career

Auckland Cup winning jockey Gemma Sliz is quitting New Zealand racing - for the meantime at least.

Sliz, 24, who won the 2004 Auckland Cup on Upsetthym, has battled injuries and limited riding opportunities since she made a comeback from a broken back last year. She has hung up her riding boots and now intends to travel.

The former English rider said New Zealand is her home and has not ruled out making a comeback to riding.

"My back's just been playing up too much," Sliz said. "I don't want to risk another crash. The back's okay but it gets really sore at times."

Sliz spent 10 months on the sidelines after she fractured three vertebrae, ribs and a foot in a race fall at Ruakaka in Northland in September, 2004. At the time doctors feared she could have been paralysed.

Sliz said her back was still troubling her and she had developed arthritis in a foot.

"I was riding trackwork and getting sore then going to the races. It was all getting too much for my back," she said.

"I wasn't getting many rides and I wasn't trying to get many rides so there wasn't much point carrying on."

Sliz is booked to fly to London on April 3 and will travel around Europe until September when she hopes to get a job riding trackwork in Dubai.

- NZPA