Henry Brooke returned to action after an injury-enforced layoff at Carlisle on Tuesday and, after finishing sixth on his first ride, he scored with the Mark Walford-trained Miss Amelia, who finished clear of Pistol Park in the 2m handicap chase.
The jockey broke three vertebrae in his neck in a schooling fall last November and came close to being paralysed. He was not expected to return until March and praised the team at Jack Berry House rehabilitation centre, as well as the BHA’s chief medical officer Dr Jerry Hill, for facilitating his swift comeback.
Brooke’s latest injury came a little more than four years after he had to be placed into an induced coma after a fall at Hexham left him with a punctured lung, internal bleeding and multiple rib fractures.