By MICHAEL GUERIN
It doesn't really matter where Allan Broomhall finishes in the national Junior Drivers' Championships - he has already won.
The 24-year-old Invercargill horseman has won a battle far more important than the annual series which begins at Cambridge tonight.
Broomhall has beaten those who said a young man with only one leg could not make it as a professional driver.
Doctors amputated Broom- hall's left leg above the knee when he was just 11. The leg was cancerous, believed to have been caused by a blow from a hockey ball three months earlier.
When his leg disappeared so too did any dreams of becoming a jockey, so when Broomhall left school he did what any unemployed young man in Southland might - he went whitebaiting.
"But one day I was on the banks of the river and it was snowing and I thought 'bugger this'," he said.
"I had always wanted to get into racing and I thought about trotting. I thought those blokes don't need legs because they just sit down in the sulky."
With the help of harness racing officials Broomhall soon learnt it wasn't quite that simple.
"The first time I drove a horse I found out you need your legs when they start pulling. But I have learnt how to combat that."
Now Broomhall locks his artificial leg into place, giving him the leverage to steady himself against a pulling horse.
"That means I have to drive with my legs straight out in front of me and I also need a special boot with a heel high up on the sole to make sure my foot doesn't fall out of the sulky footrest."
His unusual challenge has not stopped Broomhall being the most consistent junior driver in Southland this season, with three wins and seven placings from just 20 drives under the care of astute trainer Kirk Larsen.
"To make it to these championships and drive at Cambridge and Alexandra Park is the ultimate for a junior from down here.
"I am pretty proud of it because when I first told people what I wanted to do they said I wouldn't be able to. They told me I would never be allowed to drive in a race, that I wouldn't get a medical certificate.
"So I will have a bit of a laugh to myself when I drive on to Alexandra Park on Friday night."
That smile probably won't match the one his workmate Phil Devery had the first time he saw Broomhall take a tumble from the sulky.
"A few years ago we were driving fast work and my horses galloped and hit the deck and I got shot out of the cart with so much force my artificial leg came loose, spun around and hit me in the back of the head.
"Phil was driving behind me and just managed to get past as it all happened.
"He yelled out, 'I hope that was your crook leg that just came off.'"
Broomhall has handy drives in the opening legs of the championships, partnering All That Jazz at Cambridge tonight and last-start winner Gaelic Atom Raider at Alexandra Park tomorrow night.
Racing: Broomhall overcomes rare challenge
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