Jacob Pritchhard Webb about life after serious injury

Five years ago, Jacob Pritchard Webbs was brought to an end as a jump jockey in France with a fall that changed his life at the age of 23.

Even when he took off in the hospital in Paris with his multiple neck and spine injuries, he already placed the next phase of his life and had his skills in sight from an early stage to use his skills by becoming a bloodstock agent.

Pritchhard Webb is now on the best way to establish itself in this arena, to build up his contacts and list of customers via France, England and the Czech Republic. He recently traveled to Deauville to spend a few days to shade one of the best-known names of the business, Anthony Stroud, in the Arqana Breeze-Up sale.

“I always enjoyed the apartment after working on Sir Mark Prescott in the past, which was a great training and basis. He had some great horses such as Marsha, Pallasator and Time Warp.

A random encounter at the Velka Pardubicka and in the Czech Derby meeting last year has meant that Pritchard Webb bought horses for an owner based in Czez, whose interest includes both codes.

“I met Dr. Charvat last year and am very happy to have him and his son George as a customer,” says the agent. “We started low and bought a business for € 2,500 for George, which he loved, and from there it went from there to buy Merano and Pardubice horses and further into the apartment. We bought a Saxon warrior from Orby Book 2, and then they wanted a 90-rate mile that wanted a good program for a good program for a good program, i.e. in the effort.

“I really enjoyed looking at the yearlings, and that led me to come here to shade Mr. Stroud. He was one of the first people together with Anthony Bromley to get in touch with me after my accident And he said he should let him know if I needed something. I have built it up with inquiries in the past and he saw me last year at Sky Sports Racing for the meeting of Haye Jousselin. Surprisingly, he looked at it and he called me to tell me that I was doing well on TV, and I asked him if I could shade him during a sale. “

He adds: “You want to learn from the best and look at the best and someone like MR Stroud will always look at the best. It was a bit of a eye opener.”

The often used expression “limited to a wheelchair” does not apply strictly for Pritchard Webb. His lower body paralysis means that he uses a wheelchair, but he has not let anything in his way since he brought heart and soul into his rehabilitation therapy in France and later in England in Lambourn's Oaksey House, an enormous establishment of the injured Jockes Fund (IJF).

Two years after his accident, Pritchhard webb completed a 140-mile hand cycle challenge to collect donations for the IJF that came to his aid in his hour of need.

“It is a case of” Have Wheels will travel “,” he says about his trips across Europe on the sales group. “I am in this situation because of the accident. It is what it is and it's great to look at horses and buy horses. But it is difficult, and sometimes there is frustration that the chair restricts you where you can go, but with everything you can only do and show your face, and then hopefully get some orders and some results.”

Pritchhard Webbs CAN-DO posture is a humiliating memory of us all to appreciate what we have instead of not having it as he does.

“I always call myself the unfortunate happiness,” he says. “My injury could have been so much worse. If my neck break had been a break even worse, I would not do what I do.

“For two days it was a border whether I wanted to do that at all, so I was lucky in this regard. Even if you have a quiet time on the winner or try to buy something that everyone goes through; even in addition to paralysis, you have to look at that it could have been much worse.”

After a six -month stay in French hospitals, Pritchard Webb has made his promise to follow a career in Bloodstock. He gives himself a rounded experience of some committees with Jerry McGrath and the working system with a confidence Toby Jones, including the appointed representative of the French sales company Aucav. His next step will be from Leicestershire to the Welsh boundaries with his family to help his grandfather develop her 140 hectares of farm, on which he plans to take boarders and accommodate some pin -reposed flat foals.

“Where I was hospitalized, I saw so many people in different situations and found some friends,” he recalls. “I know that there were unfortunately some people who probably never wanted to leave the hospital because they were in such a bad way. I remember one day I was the only person in the physio room that put on my own shoes, and then on another day I was the only person who couldn't walk.