Comeback win just the tonic for Bec

Rebecca East has undoubtedly experienced all the highs and lows of harness racing – and seemingly all in the past two months.

The popular Western District trainer suffered serious injuries in an innocuous training incident in May – only days after she had landed her first-ever Victorian treble at Stawell.

And last Wednesday she made her comeback to racing in the best possible way, with a win at her local Terang meeting with pacer Julius Shadow (Julius Caesar-Elsu Shadow (Elsu), driven by Michael Bellman (who has now driven 81 for the season, and on his way to another century).

"The accident happened at home and I had just finished working a young one. When I turned him around to go back to the barn, he took fright and spun around quickly, tipping me out," Bec said.

"I landed awkwardly on my left arm, and it turned out I cracked a rib and lacerated my spleen," she said.

"At the time, I didn't think much of it and finished the rest of the work! It was such a minor accident but I well and truly come off second best."

Bec said on a trip into town later in the day with her partner Kevin Brough she wasn't "feeling too flash" so she stayed in the car.

"Later on way home we had lunch and I told Kevin I still wasn't feeling all that good, so we went to Portland for an X-ray – and I was put in a helicopter and flown to Melbourne."

Bec would need to stay in Melbourne for four days but suffered another setback when she returned home.

"A few days later I was up doing a little bit of walking and the spleen started bleeding again. So we went Portland and another helicopter ride to Melbourne where I stayed about nine days this time and contracted pneumonia when I was there."

After another bout of recovery at home, more medical challenges were still to come.

"I had some different pains and went in an ambulance back to Portland with a flare up of my spleen, as well as fluid on my chest. Then I was transferred to Warrnambool hospital and they drained three litres of fluid from my chest and spent five days there," she said.

"But I think I'm definitely on the road to recovery now – tomorrow I've been home three weeks."

Bec and Kevin have 14 horses in work and Brough and stable staff have been holding the fort for the past two months.

"But it was great to finally be back to the races at Terang last Wednesday. It was my first meeting back and it was so good to get a winner and two thirds!" she said.

"We were quite confident with Julius Shadow because he was a bit unlucky at Stawell at his previous start," she said.

Julius Shadow with stablehand John Suters            (Terang HRC photo)

"He has brilliant gate speed but hit the mobile and then was back in the field and got caught up in traffic. Leading up to that race he'd trialled very well about a week before."

Bec said while she was happy to be improving, she would be taking things slowly.

"I've still got to be careful and I'm not to do anything strenuous for at least three months. So all I'm virtually doing is mixing up feeds and other very light duties," she said.

"I've definitely had plenty of worse falls – but this time it was just that I landed so awkwardly. It was the worst pain I've experienced in my life, and I've got a reasonably strong pain tolerance!

"I definitely wouldn't want to go through all that ever again."

Terry Gange

NewsAlert PR Mildura

www.newsalertpr.com.au