In welcome news, jockey Laura Lafferty has been cleared to resume race riding from July 31.
Lafferty has been sidelined for more than a month following injuries sustained in a serious fall during the Swan Hill Carnival in mid-June.
While Lafferty was lucky to escape with no broken bones, the consequences of her fall included a shoulder injury and severe concussion.
Treatment and healing of the shoulder injury came down to a series of regular physiotherapy sessions, but the concussion was another story altogether following a more drawn our process before Lafferty could get back up to speed.
“Every concussion is different and mine was on the severe end, so it definitely knocked me around quite a lot with a lot of headaches,” Lafferty told Racing.com.
“I was forgetting to put milk in with my cereal, it really knocked me around … and my speech was definitely getting me very frustrated.”
Lafferty further stated that she could see little improvement in her concussion problem for the first two weeks but, thankfully, after that fortnight, she began feeling that progress was now being made and, after a further two weeks of recovery she was ready to make her return to action.
Lafferty returned to trackwork this week and, while she will take things carefully, at this stage she has targeted the meeting Pakenham on July 31 as her comeback race-day.