Sport
22 March, 2023
Pittsworth jockey’s stellar comeback
This July it will be ten years since Pittsworth’s Brooke Stower rode her first winner. But her first decade as a professional has been more eventful than she and her family ever have imagined.
Brooke’s is a story that highlights the power of pure determination and resilience in the highest order.
In August 2020 she had a fall in the mounting yard at Grafton when her ride, Ambridge, reared.
She was left on the ground, unable to get up, and in agonising pain.
Her back was broken.
At home in Pittsworth her parents Scott and Annmarie saw it all unfolding on TV and heard the announcer saying Brookie was down and the ambulance was on site.
They had been unable to be there that day due to border closures and restrictions around Covid.
“I knew the way Gary Kliese was talking in the mounting yard that it was serious... he was putting it that it was OK, but I knew it wasn’t.”
Brooke asked someone to please call her parents because she knew they’d be watching.
She was taken to Grafton Hospital then on to Sydney at 1 o’clock in the morning.
She spent the next 11 days in hospital lying flat with a pillow under her spine enduring constant drilling pain.
After that she was put in a Rissercast, a tight, stifling singlet-style cast that went from her neck to her hips, for seven weeks.
But despite all of this, her attitude never wavered from wanting to get back in the saddle - and, in particular, she had unfinished business with that Ambridge.
The former St Stephen’s Primary and Pittsworth High student was back at work 11 months after the fall and four months later she was back on Ambridge, riding him to victory for his first win.
That season she went on to ride 81 winners, bringing her career total to 375.
Annmarie recalls Brooke being incredibly driven to ride, even as a child.
“She would throw a tantrum when it was time to get off her pony,” she said.
The whole family remembers her first race back in 2013.
It was at Cunnamulla and to the delight of everyone she won that first race and managed more placings on the day.
The winning spirit was perhaps sealed that day.
“She’s a very determined strong-minded girl.
“When she broke her back she said she’d come back better than ever, she said that right from the beginning,” Annmarie recalls.
The wins and accolades have continued.
On March 2, for example, Brooke was named Jockey of the Day at Coffs Harbour on jockeyhubaustralia.
She rode a double (two winners for the day) at Moree on March 14 and on Monday this week she rode Razzama to victory at Coffs Harbour giving her 58 winners for the season.
Annmarie said the family wanted to thank the Pittsworth and surrounds community who had shown great support during Brooke’s time in hospital and throughout her recovery.
“She knows she has a lot of support in Pittsworth.”
