‘Felt like I was hit by an axe’: Mark Du Plessis makes Group 1 comeback after excruciating back injury

Du Plessis was carted off in an ambulance after his lower back gave way on Tatt’s Tiara day at Eagle Farm in June, which left him in agony along with no feeling in one of his legs.

The journeyman jockey, 49, has answered a call from master trainer Chris Waller to ride a pair of lightweight chances in the Group 1 Epsom Handicap (1600m) and Metropolitan Handicap (2400m) at Randwick on Saturday after returning to racing just a fortnight ago.

Du Plessis, who has won numerous Group 1s internationally is gunning for his first major in Australia, said his back injury was so painful, he would have preferred to break his leg instead.

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“My first ride on Tatt’s Tiara day, I was coming up to the 100m marker, it honestly felt like someone hit me over the back with an axe, it was so painful,” he told Racenet.

“The horse still managed to run fourth, all on his own.

“When I pulled up, I had no feeling in my leg at all.

“When I came back to scale, I had trouble getting off the horse, so I had someone help me off then I hit the ground in all sorts of pain.

“Before the ambulance had left the course, they had the morphine in me as well.

“(The specialist) said one of my discs had come out, with the right leg having no feeling, it must have moved to that side and it was blocking the nerves to the leg.

“They said if I didn’t have feeling in 10 days, they would have to operate, luckily when I went back to the doctor, it hadn’t recovered, but had felt like I had just pulled my hamstring.”

Du Plessis is well aware his riding career won’t go on forever and says the injury has served as a reminder to tone down his riding workload in order to prolong his time in the saddle.

He said instead of putting in countless hours of trackwork, he will have to make his results on the track count instead, with First Light (Metropolitan) and Firestorm (Epsom) both leading lightweight chances.

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“Chris has given me a lot of support over the years, especially with the light weights, so to get two on a big day like this is really good,” he said.

“Against my own will I have had to tone down the workload a bit to prolong the amount of race days I can have.

“Every jockey’s career comes to an end at some stage, but while I can come back and ride, I want to.

“I have to manage it better, I doing a lot of work in the gym and playing a lot of golf, I was really overloading it.”

First Light is a $10 chance in betting while Firestorm is $21.

Originally published as ‘Felt like I was hit by an axe’: Mark Du Plessis makes Group 1 comeback after excruciating back injury