Alice Springs trainer Rene Taylor recovering from spinal injury

[Wandering Eyes]

Alice Springs trainer Rene Taylor (right) with her late grandmother Emmie Wehr, who was also a prominent trainer in the Red Centre, during a meeting at Pioneer Park.

Alice Springs trainer Rene Taylor is well and truly on the road to recovery.

Taylor, 45, is convalescing after a serious training accident on November 20 last year where she fell from a horse and injured her spine.

The mother of two teenage boys had worked unraced three-year-old gelding Midnight Hustle along the banks of the Todd River behind the Pioneer Park racecourse and was returning to the stables when she was dislodged.

“It was just an alternative exercise rather than going on the track, but he suddenly shied and I came out of the saddle,” she said.

“It wasn’t anything dramatic or spectacular, I just landed on my bum, but my spine just compacted.

“I knew there was something wrong straight away, I couldn’t get up.

“The pain was through the roof, it was excruciating and I was screaming.”

When the riderless Midnight Hustle was discovered wondering around the stables at the rear of the racecourse fellow trainers, jockeys and stable-hands went looking for Taylor.

She was discovered some 10-15 minutes later before an ambulance was summoned.

“Josh Gardner, the son of trainer Paul, found me in his vehicle on the dirt track behind the stables, it runs adjacent to the river,” Taylor said.

Following a CT scan and MRI at Alice Springs Hospital, a heavily sedated Taylor was on a flight to Adelaide that afternoon with husband David Sanders by her side.

“It was about 4.30pm when I left Alice Springs and I was wheeled into theatre at Royal Adelaide Hospital at around 1.30am on the Tuesday,” she said.

“Two screws in my L11, L12, C2 and C3, as well as two rods attached to every screw.

“I had a compression fracture to my C1 – it was crushed to 50 per cent of its normal size.

“They had me standing within hours after my surgery and I started walking on the Friday.

“The screws will come out after 12 months.”

After intensive rehab walking is thankfully not a serious ordeal these days, but Rene still has discomfort when she either leans over, attempts to pick something up from the floor or puts on her shoes.

There was a period where she sat on a chair to shower.

Further x-rays in January indicated that the recovery process was going well, but it will be a while before she can return to the saddle.

Instead, Taylor will focus on training where she has Eight On The Dot, Tycoons Dior, Midnight Hustle and the unraced three-year-old filly Piccadilly Hero in her yard.

“I’d like to get back on a horse today, but that’s unlikely until next year,” Taylor said.

“Midnight Hustle and Piccadilly Hero are in work.”

Taylor, who started her training career in June 2020, is off to Pioneer Park on Sunday as one of the races on the Alice Springs Turf Club’s program honours her late grandmother Emmie Wehr.

Wehr, Australia’s first Indigenous female horse trainer, was an institution in the Red Centre for well over 50 years before passing away in 2021, aged 83.

“I’ve been to a few meetings, which was something I was looking forward to, since my operation,” Taylor said.

“The support and love I received from the Alice Springs community was overwhelming, it was incredible.

“One minute racing is your whole world, then the next minute it’s not your whole world.

“Getting better is your whole world.”

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