Melbourne Cup day will mark 12 months since champion jockey Blake Shinn fell from talented mare She’s Got Pizzazz as she thundered down the straight an hour after the Cup had been run and won and snapped the tibia and fibula on his left leg.
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Cup → mark → leg
With his leg broken in four places, he began hyperventilating on the track before being loaded into an ambulance on his way to surgery.
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he → break → surgery
How the 2024/25 Victorian jockeys premiership winner made it back to ride Nearco Frod to victory in his first race ride on August 1, just nine months later is something of a medical miracle.
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made → make → miracle
But he defied the odds to stamp himself as one of the country’s toughest athletes in a business not designed for the faint-hearted.
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he → defy → hearted
When Shinn first spoke post-injury to Dan Piovesan from Pioda Health and Performance – the team of professionals charged with his recovery – the experienced hoop had only a vague sense of what would be required.
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what → speak → sense
“He said to me, ‘nine months Dan’, and I was like, ‘this is a 12-month injury’,” Piovesan recalled.
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Piovesan → say → me
Shinn admits he initially set himself a goal to be back within months before he truly accepted the reality of what lay ahead of him.
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what → admit → him
“The doctors were a little bit vague in terms of how long it would take for me to be back,” Shinn said.
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Shinn → take → terms
“It wasn’t like they said, ‘it is going to take you 12 to 18 months’.
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it → say → months
They said, ‘when your leg heals and you can put some pressure on it you can come back,’ so I was like, ‘well I can get this back as quick as I can.’
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I → say → this
“I have been able to speed up injuries in the past and I thought this would be no different and I suppose looking back we have sped it up but, geez, it was a long haul.”
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it → speed → it
Piovesan knew Shinn well enough to appreciate his willingness to work at an exceptional level when he put his mind to something.
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he → know → something
“He is an amazing athlete and you can see why he is so successful because of his mentality,” Piovesan said.
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Piovesan → see → mentality
“But with such a tough injury and the injury he sustained, you have to have someone to guide you through it, so the number one thing was being honest and transparent with the process and the actual rehab that needed to be taken, and respecting healing times.”
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that → sustain → times
Shinn, who describes himself as “a hyperfocused sort of person”, spent the first two weeks post-surgery getting used to the moonboot he would wear for three months.
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he → describe → months
Unable to put any weight on his leg until the end of December, he focused his training on conditioning the upper body and what Piovesan calls “the non-affected leg”.
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Piovesan → put → what
He maintained fitness and kept his core strength before even considering getting the leg he had broken moving.
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he → maintain → leg
When the moonboot was removed it was a case of going back to square one and literally taking baby steps.
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it → remove → steps
Put simply, Shinn had to learn how to walk again.
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Shinn → Put → ?
Work at that point centred around re-establishing his gait pattern and teaching Shinn how to use his foot correctly as he rebuilt the muscle to enable him to walk properly.
“I lost a lot of feeling and [had] weakness in my foot, so that whole process of building the foot up, building the ankle up, the calf, the quad, the whole left side that I lost so much power in, that was hard,” Shinn said.
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Shinn → centre → power
Helping out at his partner Lucy Yeomans’ stables kept his mind ticking over while his long-time myotherapist at the Muscle and Bone Clinic, Ilias, helped him manage the pain.
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him → help → pain
“I just felt that the harder I focused on my rehab the sooner I would come back to riding,” Shinn said.
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Shinn → feel → riding
“Every day just churned over, one after another, keep working hard, keep at it and hopefully the bones would mend sooner or later, but there was no end in sight in the first few months.”
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bones → churn → months
What sustained Shinn, observed Piovesan, was his deep connection with racing and horses.
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Piovesan → sustain → racing
“His love for the sport was so evident because all he wanted to do was be around it and he was so fixated on being back on the horse,” Piovesan said.
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Piovesan → want → horse
But that fixation could not override the professionalism required to rehabilitate his body properly.
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fixation → override → body
Piovesan would not let time dictate their decision-making, and Shinn let the experts decide what was required.
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what → let → making
“You don’t really go time-based.
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You → go → ?
It is criteria-based.
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It → base → ?
[You] make sure certain metrics are achieved using testing or scans from the surgeon.
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metrics → make → surgeon
Once we hit markers, we can move into our next phase.
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we → hit → phase
It might be a strength block or can he cope with load or can he jump or can he absorb force,” Piovesan said.
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Piovesan → cope → force
“Once we hit these milestones we then understand our next course of action.”
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we → hit → action
Piovesan knew that getting back on a horse would be an important moment for Shinn and an important test of his progress.
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getting → know → progress
But even as he told Shinn when the date neared in late May that it had to be a controlled, gradual return he knew in his heart the jockey had not been able to help himself.
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jockey → tell → himself
Shinn confessed to Piovesan as he somewhat guiltily began his warm-up in Pioda’s gym in Middle Park that he had jumped ahead and ridden at Cranbourne an unraced horse Farquar that his friend Wilf Mula owned.
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friend → confess → that
The pair laughed at the game within a game they were playing with each other but it only strengthened their bond as a return date inched closer.
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date → laugh → bond
Piovesan understood there were moments rehabilitating athletes when a hard line had to be taken and other moments when the athlete’s need for autonomy overrode the science.
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need → understand → science
Having spent three hours a day three days a week at the gym religiously since the start of the year, the purpose of all that work needed to be semi-realised.
“That was a great feeling to be able to get to that moment and then build back up to be fit to race which is another process in itself,” Shinn said.
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Shinn → spend → itself
After riding in 65 jumpouts, Shinn headed back to the races on August 1 with metrics showing he was fitter and stronger than he had been before the fall.
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he → rid → fall
…and 19 more, not listed.
The Aporia
