By MIKE DILLON
When you ride a horse as good as Bonecrusher over fences as $2.20 favourite you know things can sometimes be too good to be true.
They were for former Kiwi jumps jockey Craig Thornton at Belmont in New York last week and he ended up with two cracked vertebrae.
Which is why the 33-year-old outstanding horseman was at Ellerslie on Saturday, watching the McGregor Grant Steeplechase, one of the few major races to escape him before he moved to the United States nine years ago.
Thornton is currently lying second on the US jumps jockeys' premiership with 10 wins during a season that ends in November, but his luck ran out in New York on the raceday lead-up to Saturday's famed Belmont Stakes.
"The horse I was riding, Jack Flash, ran in the 1997 Kentucky Derby and is a serious horse - it's like riding Bonecrusher over fences."
Jack Flash clipped heels on the flat coming into the home straight with a lap to travel.
"They always say flat falls are the worst and they are. I didn't get a chance to get my arms out.
"The first thing to hit the ground was my head and I was lucky I didn't break my neck."
After such a long time away, Thornton says he's not sure where home is anymore, but sporting a pronounced eastern US accent he said there are several things he misses about New Zealand.
"I miss the people and probably most of all I miss riding around here. Ellerslie is a fabulous jumping course."
He said he could not own up to missing the Waikato winters, but says the winters in his home base in Pennsylvania are fairly torrid.
"It's a shame people bet off course in New Zealand these days which kills the atmosphere at the track on all but major days, because New Zealand and Australian racing is the best in the world.
"It's certainly the toughest racing, which is why it's easier for me to stay up there - the races are easier and the stakemoney is better."
Thornton is hopeful he can be back race riding for the next major meeting in the US at Saratoga and medical advice suggests the target is realistic.
Racing: Luck runs out in New York
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