‘Worrying time’ for former top jockey who won last-of-its-kind Cheltenham race

A FORMER top jockey has spoken candidly of his ‘worrying’ health scare – after waking up to discover he had suffered a stroke.

Larry McGrath suffered a bleed on the brain and still does not have full use of his left hand.

He has had to stop working as a work rider for trainer Craig Lidster because ‘all the muscle is more or less wasted’ in his arm.

McGrath, 51, was a top jumps jockey in his time.

He won more than £500,000 over the course of a 20-year career and claimed the last ever Cathcart Challenge Cup at the 2004 Cheltenham Festival on the Richard Guest-trained Our Armageddon.

The race ceased to exist in the same way after that, although a similar contest in the shape of the Ryanair was introduced a year later, when the Festival went to four days.

McGrath also raced in the Grand National and his best season came in 2003-04 when he won 29 times and earned prize money of just shy of £250,000.

Speaking to the Racing Post, McGrath said he was on statutory sick pay and that the uncertainty over his future was ‘worrying’.

He said: “The doctors say it was a stroke, a bleed on the brain, but I’m still waiting for the results of an MRI scan.

“Fortunately, nothing else seems to have been affected, just my hand, but that’s something I need!

“I’ve been riding all my life but I can’t ride because I have no strength in my hand.

“I can move it and if I put something into it I can hold it, but trying to lift things is hard.

“I can’t eat with a knife and fork, I have to rely on using a fork in my right hand.

“Is it continuing to get better? Some days it is, some days it isn’t, but that’s the way it works.”