Thinking 'if I fall...'

'This is it'

But I went to the Cheltenham Festival

Thinking 'I am gonna fall, I just hope it's not it'

In 2008 I broke my back at Warwick

I had fractures between my T9 and T12 vertebrae

You're lying on the ground

For six or seven minutes

You don't know whether the sweat is running down your head

Because of the fear or the pain

Because you can't feel anything

You've no feeling

You don't know what's happening

In those five or six minutes

If a doctor had come along with a gun

And said 'by the way, I've no painkillers'

'But I've got a gun, do you wanna shoot yourself?'

You'd say 'hmm, maybe. Give it another minute'

And then the doctor comes along

And gives you the morphine

You think this is the best thing ever

This is what you call getting proper high

And then it's about trying to get back

That happened on the 12th January

So I've gone in the space of six minutes

From thinking 'am I gonna walk again?'

To thinking...

By the time I get back to the ambulance room

And on the way to hospital

Thinking 'I know that it's the 12th January'

'I know that Cheltenham is in two months'

And I go to the hospital

And I get told

That I have these fractures

And the doctor's on about putting me in a body cast

And I'm having an argument with him

Telling him that I'm gonna be in a body cast for three months

I'm high and I'm telling him that I need to be out of here

I need to get sorted

And for some...how or another

I managed to convince him

To operate on me

And put four plates

Or two plates and four screws

Either side of my back was a better idea

Than me being in a body cast

And he agreed with me and he did it

And he still told me that I wasn't going to ride

At the Cheltenham Festival

And I managed to ride on the 10th or 11th March

The Friday before the Cheltenham Festival

So I think about my great achievements riding horses

But I think that was probably one of my best achievements

To get back on a horse

Seven-and-a-half weeks after

Having two metal plates put in your back

I went to the Cheltenham Festival thinking

'If I fall like this'

'This is it'

But I went to the Cheltenham Festival thinking

'I am gonna fall. I just hope it's not it'

I've never been to a Cheltenham Festival

Where I haven't had a fall

So you go there

And you hope you're going to win

And you want to prove a point

To everyone that you think you can do something that's mad

And then you want to think to yourself

'When I fall, I hope I get up