DANNY COOK, out of action with a broken arm since early last month, is set to return to the saddle this week as he seeks to pick up the threads of what promises to be his best-ever season.

Cook, who rides mainly for Ryedale trainer Brian Ellison, had clocked up 25 winners - only five short of his best-ever score - before his accident, which came courtesy of a heavy last-flight fall from hurdler Apterix at Musselburgh.

“There were two fractures, one in my forearm and the other in my wrist but luckily for me they were clean and did not require surgery,” said Cook, who had the arm put in a plaster cast to aid the healing process.

“I’ve been riding out and schooling this week for Brian and for Sue Smith and it feels great. I’m ready to go again,” said Cook, who is no stranger to being on the sidelines.

A badly broken knee a couple of seasons ago kept him out for several months while, last season, he suffered a broken leg after being kicked by another runner while he was walking around at the start on his horse before a race at Newcastle.

“Things were going really well for me this season before the accident and I can’t wait to get back,” said Cook. “Brian has some really nice horses, including Racing Europe, Definitly Red, Seamour and a favourite of mine, Gone Forever, who won at Market Rasen in December and who could go back there this week.”

He is also looking forward to continuing a newly found partnership with Sue and Harvey Smith, for whom he rode four winners from six mounts prior to his Musselburgh spill. “I get on well with Sue and Harvey, have had a bit of luck for them, and they’ve also got some nice horses,” he said.

Unlikely to be short of quality ammunition, Cook can hardly wait to return to the saddle.

 

• KEEN on cycling and eager to support Jack Berry House? Then you will surely be interested in an event, due to take place in late May, and organized by former amateur jockey Peter Dun and Helen Wilson, northern almoner for the Injured Jockeys’ Fund.

The sponsored cycle ride will take place on Thursday, May 28 and take in five Yorkshire racecourses – a route of around 100 miles – starting at Thirsk and finishing at Wetherby when an evening meeting will be taking place.

Help is required to organise the ride and Dun has requested that anyone who is interested attend a meeting at the Scotch Corner Hotel at 1pm on Thursday, January 29.

Further detail can be obtained from Dun on 07710 332821 or from Wilson on 07917 871484.

 

• JOANNA MASON'S first ride at Kempton last week proved a winning one in a dramatic race.

Riding for her grandfather, veteran Sheriff Hutton trainer Mick Easterby, Mason took the honours in the amateur riders’ handicap over a mile and a half aboard the 9-4 favourite Pivotman in a race where the runners had to negotiate a stray swan, which had ambled across the course about a mile from home.

Fortunately, Mason was not directly affected on Pivotman but Ross Birkett, riding the leader Tight Lipped who eventually finished unplaced, had a different experience. His mount hurdled the hapless swan, which seemed totally unaffected by the incident.

The Kempton stewards held an inquiry into “a swan being on the racing line” and ordered a report to be sent to the British Horseracing Authority.

A total of 22 swans populate Kempton racecourse and its nearby lake, but this was the first time any of them had interfered with a race on the all-weather circuit.

 

• MALCOLM JEFFERSON has not had a lot of luck in the last couple of months, but it changed for the better at Wetherby when Firth Of The Clyde went into the final fence of the feature race on the card in third place and came out in first.

It was a dramatic outcome to the two miles event. Tony McCoy aboard Bold Henry was holding a narrow advantage over Daragh Bourke on Indian Scout when the two horses collided in mid-air. Both came to grief – and both were uninjured – which left the Brian Hughes-ridden Firth Of The Clyde with the race presented to him on him on a plate, not to mention a first prize of well over £11,000, as he came home with eight lengths to spare.

“We were lucky,” admitted a delighted Jefferson. “I don’t what would have happened. He was running a good race and was staying on. We’ll tell the handicapper we would have finished third and hope he thinks we were lucky too!”

 

• WHAT a difference a day makes – or even two – in the life of a racehorse trainer.

Kristin Stubbs saddled 12-1 shot Wink Oliver to win at Wolverhampton last Thursday to post her first winner of 2015 – and duly followed-up the next day with Bogsnog, who was returned at 10-1.

It was an excellent 24 hours for the Norton trainer, who is in her third season with a licence. Stubbs sent out a dozen winners in her initial campaign in 2013 and topped that last year when recording a tally of 14 successes.

Last week’s flying start give her every chance of setting the bar even higher this year. Wink Oliver, also a winner on the course last October, when priced at 33-1, was ridden by Graham Gibbons.

Norton apprentice Jake Butterfield was aboard Bogsnog as he recorded his first winner of the year after a bumper 2014 campaign, in which he rode 25 winners.

Tony Coyle, Stubbs' neighbour, also found Wolverhampton a happy hunting ground. He saddled Red Touch to win at 10-1 under Ben Curtis. It was the three-year-old’s first run for Coyle and also his first outing in a handicap, having previously been trained by Alan McCabe.

 

• BARRY McHUGH made it two wins from his first four mounts of 2015 when scoring on Warfare at Southwell last week, a success which provided Tim FitzGerald with a welcome Flat winner.

The gelding, previously trained by Kevin Ryan and bought for £10,000 last autumn by locally-based Dukes Racing, got off to a tardy start on his latest outing but it mattered little to the outcome as he came home with nearly four lengths to the good.

“He did it well, considering he missed the break,” said McHugh. “He should have no problem winning again around there.”

McHugh’s previous winner since the turn of the year had been on the George Margarson-trained Woolfall Sovereign, also at Southwell.

 

• CHELMSFORD CITY racecourse has opened its doors for the first time and one local rider has helped to christen it.

Paddy Mathers was in action at the Essex-based track’s curtain-raising fixture last Sunday and rode the biggest priced winner on the card – the Derek Shaw-trained Invigilator, who won by a neck at 20-1 and paid more than double those odds on the Tote.

Mathers was full of praise for the Polytrack circuit, which had previously been known as Great Leighs, but which closed down, after only a short spell in operation, seven years ago.