JOCKEY Philip Hide has won £58,000 in compensation after being injured in a "bizarre" fall at Cheltenham Racecourse.
But the Jockey Club has attacked it as health and safety gone mad.
The 39-year-old, who rode more than 400 winners during his career, suffered a shattered hip and serious head injuries when his horse fell during the Letheby and Christopher Novice Handicap Hurdle at Prestbury Park in November 2006.
In what was described as a "1-in 1,000 incident", his mount Hatch a Plan stumbled after the first hurdle, pitching sharply to the right and hurling Mr Hide into a track-side barrier.
Mr Hide, now a trainer, had to be put into a medically induced coma while doctors rebuilt his left hip. He fought his way back to fitness and resumed his racing career but the hip had to be replaced after his retirement in 2010.
He sued Jockey Club Racecourses Ltd, but his case was dismissed by Judge Charles Harris QC last year after the course owner insisted that the accident was a bizarre one-off that could not reasonably have been foreseen or guarded against.
However, Appeal Court judges have now reversed that decision and awarded Mr Hide £58,000 for his injuries.
Setting a high legal bar, Lord Justice Longmore said that the accident was foreseeable in the sense that it was possible and it was for the Jockey Club to prove that it was an "exceptional event" that could not have been avoided.
Pointing to health and safety laws, the judge, sitting with Lords Justice McFarlane and Davis, said the padding on the railings "could have been thicker" and placed further from the fence.
Lord Justice Davis agreed that "jump racing is dangerous" – requiring a "great deal of guts as well as a great deal of skill" from jockeys – and acknowledged the Jockey Club's concerns about the 'remorseless march' of Europe-driven health and safety legislation.
"Health and safety gone mad is a familiar enough popular expression," he added.
Jockey Club lawyers earlier told the court that Cheltenham groundsmen had labelled the angle of Mr Hide's fall as "bizarre" and said they could not recall a similar accident at the course in more than 20 years.
However, Christopher Sharp QC, for Mr Hide, said: "Quite simply, this accident was manifestly foreseeable – it happens.
"There was no need for this hurdle to be where it was."
