Aidan Coleman anticipating 'a lot of problems in later life' following horror injury

Aidan Coleman fears the awful knee injury he suffered at Worcester in June will leave him with major lifelong consequences – and says requiring a new knee is a "certainty".

Coleman was speaking to the Racing Post for a major interview in Sunday’s newspaper in which he discussed his shock at the sport’s reaction to his short career break last summer, his ambition to win big races rather than become champion jockey and the incident that put him on the sidelines when Ascension Day crashed through the wing of the final flight at Worcester.

"The horse was a big price [40-1 in a maiden hurdle] but I knew him, I'd schooled him for Shaun Lycett, who trains over the road, and it was just a freak accident," he recounted.

"It was weird. I don't know why he did it. Every horse looks to go right at Worcester late on because the pre-parade ring is there, but for some reason he went left, he jumped the third-last in front on his own, the second-last in front on his own, and I'd schooled him loads of times on his own, but he decided not to jump the last, hit the wing, straight on into my knee at 30mph. Everything else was fine, no injury at all, just the knee, and I'm still paying the price."

Coleman shattered the top of his tibia, which was ground to "sawdust" and had to be cleared out before a graft could be put in. But the complex structure of the knee and its criss-crossing connective tissues was also damaged.

"Like my surgeon said, I did the full house," said the jockey, who was recently forced to concede defeat in his mission to ride Jonbon in next week’s Tingle Creek but remains on course to beat doctors’ prognosis with a return to the saddle at Christmas.

"There was one ligament that I didn't damage, and everything else inside my knee was pretty much ruptured, three of the four ligaments. Now I've got 14 pins, plates and screws, and on top of that, a lot of the cartilage between the femur and the tibia had to be removed, so there are going to be a lot of problems in later life.

"Then again, when you ride horses for a living you don't expect to come out unscathed. There are always going to be varying degrees of arthritis and other issues, and a new knee is a certainty later on, but that doesn't bother me at all. I just want to get back now."

Read more from Aidan Coleman in The Big Read, available in Sunday's newspaper or online for Members' Club Ultimate subscribers from 6pm on Saturday. Click here to sign up.

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