'It was like being in The Matrix': jockey describes horror four-horse fall

Wednesday's meeting at Sale in Australia was abandoned after a horror fall involving four jockeys that resulted in three being hospitalised. Michael Walker, the one jockey involved who chose not to go to hospital, has spoken for the first time about the incident.

Michael Walker has described his involvement in the fall that caused a premature end to Wednesday's Sale meeting as like being part of the movie The Matrix.

The former champion New Zealand apprentice and 22-time Group 1 winner was dislodged from his mount, Grey Lord, after copping the backwash of an incident that resulted in four horses either falling or losing their rider.

"When I was dislodged, all I had in my mind was, 'OK, what's going to happen here?' It was like really slow-mo, it was sort of like the movie The Matrix," Walker said on RSN927's Racing Pulse.

"I was in the air and I was thinking to myself, 'Right, what's going to break, what's going to snap?' I was actually thinking the worst. I'm thinking, 'Right, you're going to be knocked out'.

"It was like I had a good ten seconds of thinking then, all of a sudden, I stopped rolling and I thought, 'Oh my God, I got through that'.

"For me, personally, that was the first time ever in a race that it's gone slow-mo. I think it was because I was so far off them and had nowhere to go. From the point that I got to them was probably two seconds, then it felt like I was in the air for ten seconds and then rolling for a couple more seconds.

"It was actually the first time ever that I've had a fall and I was thinking the whole time. Thinking about what's going to happen, am I going to be okay? Then when I stopped it was such a huge sigh of relief."

Walker did not go to hospital but woke up "tender and sore" the morning after the fall and returned to the saddle at Friday's Ballarat meeting, where he was second and fifth (twice) in three rides.

Greatest fears were held for the first rider to fall, Chris Caserta (rider of Cases Dream), who was airlifted to hospital in Melbourne suffering from concussion and rib and back complaints, but initial scans cleared him of any serious injury, with a potential small fracture to his back his biggest issue.

He is set for an indefinite stint on the sidelines, while in-form apprentice Thomas Stockdale (Be Amazing) will be out for up to two months after confirmation of a fracture to his foot.

Joe Bowditch, who rode Signorelli, is suffering from soft tissue damage to his shoulder and was due to visit Racing Victoria doctor Gary Zimmerman on Friday for assessment. The four horses involved in the incident all escaped serious injury.

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