Joe Anderson was thrown forward and nearly off the horse before climbing back into the saddle and eventually winning the race at Plumpton. Photo / Sky Sports Racing
In a tale of horsemanship heroics that could make even seasoned jockeys applaud, Joe Anderson, a lad from Liverpool who, until the ripe age of 18, had never graced the back of a horse, pulled off a gravity-defying feat at Plumpton this weekend. His stunning recovery on the Neil Mulholland-trained
Transmission left the crowd in awe and had the course commentator dubbing it a “miracle recovery”.
Anderson found himself in the thick of it during the BetGoodwin Sussex Stayers Handicap Hurdle, with Transmission deciding to mix things up a bit. At the sixth flight of hurdles, the horse pulled a stunt that would make Houdini proud, nearly catapulting Anderson over its head. However, with both legs on one side and only his elbows on the other, Anderson managed to climb back into the saddle.
Anderson’s ordeal seemed like something out of a Hollywood blockbuster. “He made a bit of a mistake, landed on his head, nodded and pulled me up his neck. I thought it was curtains and that he had done well to stand up. But after that it actually felt smooth getting back on top,” he said.
Smooth, indeed, except for the minor inconvenience of losing his stirrups. Undeterred, Anderson sailed over the next four hurdles with nothing but grit and determination, finally regaining his stirrups just after the 10th hurdle, about a circuit away from the finish line. From there, Transmission, the horse with a penchant for thrill, crept into the race, seized the lead at the second last, and galloped to victory with a two-and-a-quarter length lead.
Reflecting on the chaotic sequence of events, Anderson, now 27, humorously admitted, “It’s amazing what fear can do! Bryan Carver asked me if I was going to pull up when I had no stirrups and I replied he’d be doing well to get me to do that in a £75,000 ($152,580) race.”
