A former stable hand with a leading racehorse trainer has alleged before the High Court that he suffered severe back injuries after being thrown from a temperamental young filly while working for trainer Dermot Weld.
Anthony Morley, St Ronan's Close, Clondalkin, Dublin, is suing Mr Weld and Moyglare Stud Ltd, with registered offices at Moyglare Stud, Co Kildare, over the alleged incident in January 1995. He was 17 at that time and claims he suffered back injuries after being thrown from a horse which, he said, had stopped completely and swung around.
He had hit a wooden railing as he fell, he said.
In a statement of claim, Mr Morley alleges negligence and breach of duty by the defendants in connection with the incident. The claims are denied.
Mr Morley claims that as a result of the incident he suffered severe personal injury and shock. He claims the defendants were negligent in causing him to break in a young horse which had a particularly temperamental nature.
He submitted they were also negligent in allowing a wooden railing to be positioned around the gallop in a manner which was unsafe and dangerous.
In evidence yesterday, Mr Morley said he returned to work with Mr Weld from June to September in 1995 but found his nerve was gone. He was wary of being paralysed. "My bottle went," he said. He was thinking of the danger of being paralysed.
He subsequently got a number of other jobs and was now in full-time employment in the racing industry in England.
He agreed under cross-examination he was not an apprentice jockey but rather a stable boy. He had an ambition to be an apprentice jockey. The incident occurred when the horse was cantering and not galloping.
In his evidence, Mr Weld said he would send young horses to Moyglare Stud to be broken in by James Feane from mid-September onwards. Mr Feane was the most experienced man in Ireland in the teaching and training of young horses.
Mr Weld said he liked Anthony Morley and never had a problem with him. He was "a bit nervous", he said. "I never thought he would make a jockey but he was a capable rider." He understood he later went to work in England.
During the training session, the young horse would have been behind an older horse cantering at a steady pace, Mr Weld said. He thought the gallop was quite good and the rails were well back. He knew there was a debate on whether plastic railings were better than wooden railings. Overall, he favoured plastic but accidents such as one in Listowel where a jockey lost an eye due to splintered plastic had made him rethink this.
Moyglare Stud's assistant manager James Feane said he was in charge of all the racehorses and broke in young horses for Mr Weld. The horse Mr Morley was riding that day was a two-year- old filly called Distinct Element which he would have ridden before. He himself was on a three-year-old horse.
Mr Feane said he led the jog out and canter and looked back and asked Mr Morley if he was all right. "He said yes and 10 strides down, the filly went past me loose," Mr Feane said. He saw Mr Morley lying on the ground and ran to the yard to call a doctor and ambulance. Mr Feane said he used the gallop every day and it was perfect for the exercise.
"It is unfortunate the accident happened, the boy just fell off," he said.
The hearing before Mr Justice Richard Johnson continues today.