Spratt and her partner Bryce welcomed a baby daughter, Riley, in September and soon after, she wanted to get back to riding trackwork – which, again, will surprise nobody.
But on October 4, a horse she was taking out for a casual trackwork session came crashing down, as did her comeback.
“It was kinda weird how it all happened,” she tells the Herald.
“I was going out for a normal trackwork session on a lovely old horse I have ridden to win a few times and we stopped to let another horse gallop past.
“Then out of nowhere, he rolled backwards and landed on me and crushed my pelvis.
“I reckon I went straight into shock as it didn’t really hurt that much at the time but as it turns out, I broke my pelvis and hip in nine places.”
So the energy bunny of the northern jockey’s room now has a harness bolted into either side of her hips to restrict movement and two bolts in her back that will be there permanently.
“I am using a wheelchair to get around for the moment but I can stand up and put weight on my legs, just not for very long,” she explains.
“But it is obviously going to a long recovery period.”
Which raises the very question, recovery to what: a normal life or a return to the race-day saddle?
“I really don’t know the answer to that,” Spratt admits.
“Sometimes I think, why would I go back riding? And my parents said the same thing.
“I was really lucky to get a top surgeon to operate on me and when I asked him if could eventually ride again, he said ‘well, I wouldn’t’.
“But I don’t know if I am ready to retire and I suppose I won’t really know that until I am healed.
“And I don’t need to make a decision on that now. I will get better and then see if the desire to race ride is still there.
“I might think no now, but I could be really missing it in six or 12 months.”
Ironically, Spratt considered retiring four or five years ago and if she had, hers would have been a hugely successful career – but the last three years have seen a remarkable late-career renaissance.
Her 73 winners two years ago was her best tally since 2009 and she rode eight black-type winners that season, so has 23 in the last two years.
In that same two-season period, only Craig Grylls, Warren Kennedy and Joe Doyle, all of who rode 26 black-type winners, have had more success at the elite level.
Whether Spratt comes back to race riding is a decision for another day.
This summer she already has enough on her plate: getting better, doing what the doctors tell her, raising Riley.
But while nobody knows what the future holds Spratt inadvertantly reveals a clue to what lies in her heart.
Suggest to her there is no need to even think about race riding again until next spring, since this summer has been ruled out, and hey, who wants to be slogging around in winter – and Spratt counters.
“You know, coming back to riding in winter wouldn’t be the worse thing,” she offers. “It can be a good time for apprentices and some of the top jockeys are away ... ”
It appears it is easier to break Spratt’s bones than it is to dent her enthusiasm.
SAM SPRATT
Age: 40
Career rides in New Zealand: 11,003.
Career NZ wins: 1127.
Black-type NZ wins: 112.
Career stakes: $32,075,047.
Biggest season: 112 wins in 2008-2009.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.
