He’s been out of action for almost six months after suffering an ugly fall in the Silver Shadow Stakes last August, but jockey Brenton Avdulla will make a quiet return to race riding at Rosehill Gardens this Saturday.
Avdulla copped an undisplaced fracture of his C7 vertebra in the base of his neck which saw him miss the spring carnival and potential Group 1 victories on horses like Think It Over and Private Eye. The former Sydney premiership winner admits it was a tough pill to swallow initially and he took some time to come to terms with the situation.
“The first six weeks of the injury were probably the hardest, I was obviously fully braced up and couldn’t do anything,” Avdulla told SEN’s Andrew Bensley this morning.
“Watching horses that you’ve been booked on that was probably the hardest thing, and was in a pretty dark place.
“The second half of the injury was probably the time I really enjoyed. Plenty of family time which has been great.”
Whilst Avdulla has done a stack of hard work to get back to a comfortable riding weight, he won’t be going full steam ahead in terms of having a steer in every race just yet.
“I won’t be taking full books or anything, I might just have a couple of rides there Saturday up in the weights,” Avdulla said.
“On Tuesday I’ve already booked a couple of (John) O’Shea’s and a few more others during the week. And next weekend I’ve got a couple more.
“Just going to slowly build back into it, try and find some nice horses that can hopefully find me a winner. Get the weight under control and hopefully have a bit of luck.”
The rehabilitation has really ramped up for Avdulla as he prepares to return to the vigors of race riding, and he hasn’t shied away from putting in the hard yards.
“It’s been a pretty full-on last six weeks,” Avdulla said.
“Plenty of personal training, still going to physio at least once a week and for a bit there I was going three times a week.
“Throw in the track work, I have been going hard to get down to a weight now of 57kg to 57.5kg pretty comfortable without any sort of saunas or steam.
“It’s been a hard slog for the last month to get it down, but it’s starting to level out and looking forward to getting back in the saddle on Saturday.”
With plenty of downtime on his hands, Avdulla has dabbled in greyhound ownership of late, and has struck a pretty handy one in the form of Fernando Hunter. The son of Fernando Bale is building up a solid record of 11 wins and four placings from just 20 starts and almost $40,000 in earnings.
“I always had an interest in them for a number of years and probably just lost contact with it a little when I was concentrating on my riding,” Avdulla said.
“I had one of the boys that was breeding and I always said ‘if you find one that you think goes alright let me know’ and that happened to be Fernando Hunter and we’ve had a bit of luck.
“I think now I’ve got four and hopefully just going to keep getting more and more.”
Rosehill Gardens plays host to a ten-race card this Saturday with the features being the Group 2 Hobartville Stakes, Group 2 Silver Slipper Stakes, Group 2 Millie Fox Stakes and the Listed Parramatta Cup.