Reinsmen recovering from four-horse fall

The family of reinsman Paul Weidenbach say the northern Victorian horseman appears to have escaped any breaks or serious internal damage from a sickening fall at the Yarra Valley harness racing meeting on Monday afternoon (Sept 10).

Weidenbach was driving one of the four runners who fell after a scrimmage at the front of the field in race 2.

With half a lap to go stewards noted that the sulkies of the two leaders came into contact and the leader, Vincent Grange, galloped and fell, with three trailing runners coming down in the incident.

Weidenbach, Alex Ashwood, David Jack and Adam Shaw were all injured with Weidenbach taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Ashwood later admitted to Bendigo Base Hospital.

“Dad hit the track hard, and it looked pretty bad at first. They thought he was in trouble with his neck initially,” Weidenbach’s son Kevin said.

“But they’ve done all the scans and x-rays they can today, and at this stage they don’t think he’s broken anything.  He’s got concussion and a serious whiplash injury, and his face is pretty bad, but he is better than they thought,” he said.

Kevin, who was driving at Gawler in South Australia on Monday, said he’d got home to see his dad in hospital Tuesday afternoon.

“He’s got some damage to one of his eye sockets that they are keeping a watch on but he was very lucky because they are pretty certain there’s no internal bleeding.  He’s kept all his teeth and somehow he didn’t even break his nose,” Kevin said.

“He is having trouble keeping food down though and the staff say that could be the effects of the concussion or the painkillers, so they’ll keep him in there tonight and he’ll see the doctor again tomorrow morning.

“He has his neck brace off now and they’ve got him up doing a bit of walking, but he’s still pretty sore and sorry for himself.

“When you hit the ground that hard you are not going to bounce and he’s no spring chicken, but he’s come out of it a lot better than we first expected.”

Alex Ashwood was kept in hospital overnight for scans and will be on the sidelines for the next week.

“I’m a bit sore with bruising and swelling around my spine.  That was the worry for me because I’ve fractured my back before, but the signs are all good on that,” he said.

David Jack said he was pretty sore but “thankfully okay with no major damage”.

“It all happened very quickly, but I think I was speared out sideways, which was better than being flung into the air.  After I was able to get myself up off the track, I thought ‘well that’s a plus’!” he said.

“I haven’t had many falls over the years, but the ground hasn’t got any softer.!  I thought I was okay afterwards, but when I got up in the night I was struggling to walk.  I’m going a bit better today.”

Adam Shaw was treated by medics at the track, but not transferred to hospital.

“I haven’t got any real worries – just a bit of a sore shoulder.  I was able to climb back into the cart after and get off the track okay.”

Stewards have opened an inquiry into the incident, in which only three horses completed the course.

It’s believed all of the horses involved escaped serious injury with only Vincent Grange, driven by Ashwood, stood down and needing a vet clearance before racing again.

For complete race results, click here.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink