All eyes were on producer Sarah Walker at the recent North of England Spring Show as she made her triumphant comeback, eight months after she suffered horrific injuries in a rotational fall.
Sarah took the open hunter championship with former Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) winning middleweight Crystal Cove (Fish).
Sarah had a crashing fall last August while practising an extension ahead of the evening performance at the National Hunter Championships.
“I think if we’d only been trotting when the horse tripped, we would have been ok, but because we were practising an extension, it ended up being a rotational fall,” she explained.
Sarah, who runs a highly successful yard alongside her husband Rob Walker, was knocked unconscious in the fall and damaged ligaments in her back and shoulders.
But the worst injuries were to her face: she de-gloved her entire jaw, damaged her mouth and severed the main nerve in her chin. She needed major surgery to repair the damage.
“I was unlucky in one respect, but lucky in another as it could have been so much worse,” Sarah told H&H.
A lengthy recovery ensued.
“We came home on the Wednesday afterwards, and Rob had to help me out of the car and into the house. I was so weak and frail like a little old lady. My whole body just felt in so much pain,” Sarah said.
“Rob and the children were amazing, as was my mum. Mum came to help look after me and spoon-fed me soup for the first week or so. She’d make half a cup at a time as that’s all I could manage. I remember joking to her, ‘I bet you didn’t think you’d be feeding me with a spoon at my age’. I lost two stone in weight – I was just so frail.”
The couple’s daughter, Izzy, who was 11 at the time, had witnessed Sarah’s accident.
“After we got home, she just lay across me and cried,” said Sarah. “She was in a terrible place – wouldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep – so we decided that the best thing was for her to go to the [British Show Pony Society] BSPS champs to ride her ponies and be with her friends to forget about it. This allowed me to rest for a while.”
Their son Sam, an equine dentist, was drafted back in to help his dad with the show horses, and stepped up in fine style, even riding novice lightweight Flashpoint to beat Rob to the supreme champion hunter title at the British Show Horse Association championship.
“I was so proud of the way Rob and the children pulled together,” said Sarah, who continues to struggle with numbness – “I have to drink my tea through a straw so I know if it’s too hot,” – and damaged vocal cords, but insisted: “You just have to get on with it.”
Although Rob, Izzy and Sarah won at North of England, the morning did not start as planned.
“Just as we were ready to set off, we noticed a flat tyre,” Sarah said. “I was beginning to wonder if it was a sign, but thankfully, the day got better.
“I started welling up as I got on and felt really emotional riding up to the ring. A wave of panic came over me when we were asked to extend so I did just that in the class, but in the championship, I thought to myself, ‘I really want to win this,’” explained Sarah, who opted to wear her chinstrap hat.
Sarah had deliberately chosen Fish as the horse to help her stage her comeback.
“I didn’t do much with him as a novice; I’d only ridden him once before riding him in the championship at HOYS when Rob had also won with Sean [View Point]. But I really enjoyed it,” she said.
“I knew when I decided to come back to the ring, he was the only one I was going to ride. I just know him so well; I knew that he would look after me.”
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