Waste of time Danielle Johnson taking a Lotto ticket this week - she used up every spot of her luck in her sickening fall in Saturday's Valachi Downs $100,000 Championship Stakes at Ellerslie.
Johnson looked to be in terrible trouble when she crashed heavily from the favourite Romantic Maid just past the winning post with a round to travel, being galloped on by at least one runner behind.
Hospital tests late on Saturday revealed no more than a possible cracked bone in a hand.
Medics, fearing the worst, would not move Johnson the four metres to safety under the inside running rail and track staff and clerks of the course were left to attempt to avoid tragedy by alerting jockeys of the danger as they finished the race.
Having the favourite out of the race after just 200m was bad enough, but the aftermath was much worse. One of the worst affected was Thunder Down Under, who looked a potential danger to the winner The Hassler at the 220m. When asked by stewards why he had stopped riding Thunder Down Under from the 200m, jockey Jonathan Parkes said he was distracted by people on the track waving their arms and didn't ride his mount hard to the finish. Instead of picking up the second-placed cheque for $19,500, Thunder Down Under's owners were relegated to $2500 for fifth when the horse was swamped by three runner in the final strides.
