O’Reilly hopeful of Cup drive

Ashburton harness racing driver Sarah O’Reilly who is recuperating from a training accident, is hopeful of teaming up with American Me (American Ideal) in this November’s IRT New Zealand Cup at Addington.

“I hope so, unless the wheels really fall off,” O’Reilly said.

O’Reilly was involved in a training accident that saw her break the humerus bone in her arm.

“It was snapped in half. They put a cast on, then today it was put into a clam shell splint. At this stage they’re saying it’ll probably heal naturally. If it doesn’t in six weeks, they could look at an operation. I was only in hospital for one night because they thought they were going to operate the next day. But the doctors decided not to operate on my arm because some nerves have been damaged. They didn’t want to risk any further damage to the nerves.”

O’Reilly also broke her eye socket in two places and her cheek bone.

She is at home with her parents Gerard and Jane at present. She heads down to her father’s stable in the afternoons to be around the horses but is not allowed to be hands on.

“It’s good to be out in the fresh air because I’ve never really been an inside person. I’ve been watching the Olympics – the equestrian and the gymnastics which is quite interesting.”

Sarah expects to have a course of physiotherapy once the splint comes off.

“It’s taken two weeks for my hand to get some movement back into it because of the nerve damage so I’m not sure how well my arm is working at this stage.”

This is the first serious accident O’Reilly has had in her harness racing career.

“I’ve had some close calls and a few bruises but I’ve been aware that it would happen one day, and it has.”

The accident happened when she was working a yearling with two others on the Ashburton track.

“The one I was following shied at the gate and was half pulling up. The one that was following me put its foot in my cart. It happened quite fast. I thought I went through the dust sheet. But I got told that the horse behind me flipped the cart over, I went underneath it, and it landed on top of me. It happened a bit differently to what I thought but I must have had my eyes closed.”

O’Reilly drove American Me for her employers Brent and Tim White in last year’s New Zealand Cup finishing fourth behind Swayzee. Since then she’s won the Group One Invercargill Cup and the Listed Roy Purdon, driving the gelding.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink