Racing: Vest saves veteran from serious injury

In 13,000-odd race rides Noel Harris has never broken a bone - until Tauranga on Saturday.

The 51-year-old's headline-grabbing career remarkably defied the odds to stay intact until Harris broke three ribs when his mount Buena Ventura stood on him after firing him off his back when pulling up.

Harris was flung to the track heavily after Buena Ventura finished third to Max Quin and Captain Kurt.

With a lung drain penetrating his ribcage in Tauranga Hospital yesterday, Harris reflected how it might have been the spinal unit he was housed in but for the protective vest jockeys are now required to wear.

"There has been criticism that they prevent you from rolling when you hit the track, but if it hadn't been for the vest where this horse stood on me I don't know where I'd be."

Harris rides with shorter stirrup irons and consequently has his point of balance higher than any other rider in Australasia, but has had few falls.

His seat makes him twice as likely to be fired from a horse's back if the animal reacts violently.

Lester Piggot, probably the greatest jockey the world has known, sat on a horse with a similar perched-high style and was often thrown during a preliminary.

Harris knew he was in the lucky group as far back as when he was an apprentice.

"Gus Clutterbuck and I were apprenticed together. He had something like 25 reasonably serious falls and broke just about every bone in his body, including two broken pelvises.

"Apart from a few pulled muscles I'd never been hurt until this fall.

"Yet look at [son] Troy - he's been in the game five minutes and already he's broken both his legs. Some jockeys are lucky, some aren't."

Harris said Buena Ventura became upset when he spied the clerk of the course's horse cantering back in the opposite direction as the field pulled up on the bend out of the home straight. "He ducked suddenly and I was out to the side, but I managed to get back into the saddle, then when he went the second time he flung me around in front of him and I got trampled as he went over me.

"I'd have been better if I'd let go and gone over the side the first time."

Harris said his last proper fall was in Singapore two or three years ago.

He will remain in hospital until at least tomorrow and doctors have told him he won't be back on a horse inside four to six weeks, but because of extreme fitness levels, jockeys continually astound the medical profession with the ability of their bodies to repair.

"The ambulance people couldn't believe how quickly my blood pressure came back to normal."

Harris said he's not too devastated by the level of discomfort of his first real injury. "I feel okay, just as long as I don't laugh."

He had company for a while on Saturday night - fellow jockey Mark Sweeney, who was taken to Tauranga Hospital when he developed a complication in the leg he had recently had skin grafts on.