WE have been in contact recently with Leslie and Frances Young, wife and mother of Banbridge-born jockey Paddy Young who is slowly recovering from the traumatic injuries he suffered in a fall in the National Hunt Cup at the Radnor Hunt meeting in Malvern, Pennsylvania in mid-May.

Between hospital visits, looking after the couple’s two young children, Rory (nine) and Saoirse (eight), and running her yard, Leslie took the time to give us an update on Paddy’s progress.

“Physically, he is doing very well; walking and climbing steps with his physical therapists.

“He is able to talk and, while sometimes he doesn’t make sense, that is because the area of the brain affected was his speech.

“He has been able to take the hard neck brace off as the fracture of his C7 has healed. Hopefully, they will put the skull plate back in his head at the end of this month or early August.

“Dr Elliott is very pleased with Paddy’s progress and said he is extraordinary in his recovery. I think it helps that he was so physically fit. He never drank nor smoked and rode racehorses every day, all day long. The fact that he can talk is huge. I showed him photos recently of friends and fellow jockeys and I was so impressed that he was naming jockeys from America and Ireland.

“Paddy loved being a jockey, loved riding thoroughbreds and hasn’t lost his memory for those things he held dear to his heart. We are so thankful to everyone here and in Ireland and the UK who have reached out to us. Paddy would be truly humbled.”

Among those who have visited Paddy in hospital are US-based Irish jockeys Ross Geraghty, Sean McDermott and Willie McCarthy, Young Racing staff members Meryem Walsh, Richard Leady and Steven Russell, good friends Sanna Neilson and Anne Moran and leading event horse rider Boyd Martin.

Paddy’s mother Frances is in constant contact with Leslie and is also grateful that another of her sons, John, who lives in the US, can visit his brother regularly. She asks that people remember Paddy in their prayers.