Piere Strydom lamented the timing of his fall just after the post of the Vaal’s fifth race last Thursday which has left him with a broken collar bone.

Strydom will be replaced by UAE Champion Jockey Richard Mullen aboard the Paul Lafferty-trained star Harry’s Son in the Gr 2 Zabeel Mile on February 25 in Dubai.

However, Strydom, who will only know how bad the break is after visiting a specialist this week, is considering the use of a hyperbolic oxygen tank in an attempt to speed up the healing process as he has been promised the ride on World Cup night (probably in the Dubai Duty Free) if he is fit enough.

Strydom’s fortunes had just begun to swing in the right direction after having a few interruptions to his program last year.

He won two features at Turffontein on February 6, the Listed Wolf Power 1600 on the St. John Gray-trained Captain Aldo and the Gr 3 Three Troikas Stakes on the Robbie Sage-trained Madame Dubois.

The previous weekend he had ridden four winners for Justin Snaith on J&B Met day.

The stipendiary report describes Thursday’s incident as: “WINTER BREEZE dislodged Jockey P Strydom when stumbling in the pull up area.”

However, Strydom disagreed with the description and said, “The horse went straight down without warning.”

He added jockeys had been “moaning” for a while about the grass being too long and thick and said while it was important horses were looked after by providing forgiving ground the track should be rolled “like it is everywhere else in the world so why not here?”

Strydom concluded by talking about Harry’s Son’s outstanding performance first up in Dubai when finishing second in the Gr2 Al Fahidi Fort over 1400m, inside the previous course record, “He looked outstanding and was striding out beautifully.”

By David Thiselton