A FORMER top jockey has spoken candidly of his ‘worrying’ health scare – after waking up to discover he had suffered a stroke.
Larry McGrath suffered a bleed on the brain and still does not have full use of his left hand.
AlamyFormer Grand National jockey Larry McGrath is taking it day by day in his recovery from a stroke[/caption]
He has had to stop working as a work rider for trainer Craig Lidster because ‘all the muscle is more or less wasted’ in his arm.
McGrath, 51, was a top jumps jockey in his time.
He won more than £500,000 over the course of a 20-year career and claimed the last ever Cathcart Challenge Cup at the 2004 Cheltenham Festival on the Richard Guest-trained Our Armageddon.
The race ceased to exist in the same way after that, although a similar contest in the shape of the Ryanair was introduced a year later, when the Festival went to four days.
McGrath also raced in the Grand National and his best season came in 2003-04 when he won 29 times and earned prize money of just shy of £250,000.
Speaking to the Racing Post, McGrath said he was on statutory sick pay and that the uncertainty over his future was ‘worrying’.
He said: “The doctors say it was a stroke, a bleed on the brain, but I’m still waiting for the results of an MRI scan.
“Fortunately, nothing else seems to have been affected, just my hand, but that’s something I need!
“I’ve been riding all my life but I can’t ride because I have no strength in my hand.
“I can move it and if I put something into it I can hold it, but trying to lift things is hard.
“I can’t eat with a knife and fork, I have to rely on using a fork in my right hand.
“Is it continuing to get better? Some days it is, some days it isn’t, but that’s the way it works.”