Trevor Whelan aims to walk again before miracle return to racing after horror fall and three operations

Trevor Whelan was sidelined in September after an awful fall at York while riding Tiger Bay, who was brought down as fellow jockey Jim Crowley came crashing down into the turf on board Almeraq.

Many watching the race assumed the worst due to the nature of the fall for both jockeys, which was quickly followed by talks of air ambulances as the worrying scene unfolded in the blink of an eye.

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And somehow, both Crowly and Whelan came out of it alive, albeit with some complicated injuries.

Whelan has been out of racing with his mobility restricted to walking only on crutches, a tough change of pace to his usual active lifestyle as a jockey.

Since the fall, he’s had three major operations in the space of just eight months.

Whelan explained how difficult it’s been, speaking to Emmet Kennedy on talkSPORT 2: “When the incident happened it was such a bad fall.

“The initial thought was just that it wasn’t as severe of a fall.

“But it was a significant injury and the whole ankle had to be reconstructed.”

The initial reconstruction surgery was positive, but after a couple of months had to go back in to surgery to remove scar tissue and help the ankle moving again.

Which worked for two weeks, until the difficult decision was made to getting the ankle fusion surgery, due to a lack of healing.

An ankle fusion surgery is when a person’s ankle is fixed via screws and metal into a 90 degree position to help heal and aid rehabilitation.

As far as racing experts are aware, no active jockey has successfully returned to the sport after such an operation.

He added: “As a rider, you don’t want to do that [ankle fusion surgery] because you lose all mobility in the ankle, but it had just got so bad that I had to have the operation.

“All roads lead to just getting walking again and going from there really.”

The ankle itself wasn’t going to heal without intervention from the surgeons.

Back to racing?

Now with eight months of recovery behind him he still faces an incredible challenge in getting back to the saddle.

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“You never think it’s going to happen to you, I got brought down it was taken out of my hands and it wasn’t Jim’s [Crowley] fault either who go brought down.

“It’s just one of those things in racing.”

Thankfully, the horse Tiger Bay was able to return just a month later placing third in the Group 3 John Guest Racing Bengough Stakes at Ascot.

But Whelan isn’t getting ahead of himself. He assured talkSPORT 2’s Kennedy, that he will be focusing on getting walking again before setting sights on what could be a miracle return to racing in 2027.

National hunt jockey to established flat jockey

Trevor Whelan has had a staggering 1686 rides in the last five seasons, scooping over £919,000 in winnings and a total of £2.14million in earnings.

£290,000 of those winnings was earned in the 2025 season, as the jockey had some incredible form, with 37 winners from 359 rides.

In addition to those wins he also placed 2nd 37 times and achieved 50 3rd place finishes, helping the jockey earn £658,283 in earnings.

He’s the regular rider for trainer Henry Candy for whom he’s had some big rides on notably Group 1 runner Run To Freedom.

But Whelan actually started out as a jumps jockey.

Even running at Cheltenham Festival in 2016 and 2017 on board Lil Rockerfeller in the Grade 1 Champion Hurdle for trainer Neil King.

Before winning the Grade 2 Coral Hurdle at Ascot in November 2017 on the 160-rated horse.

It was at this year the jockey also took out his Flat license, in April 2017

But his first taste of flat riding came when winning the Alderbrook Stakes at Glorious Goodwood in 2016, known for only allowing jump jockeys to participate.

Whelan then started to feature heavily for Roger Charlton for instance cementing his capacity as a rare dual-code jockey.

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