Veteran British jockey Lindsay Charnock, who announced his retirement from race-riding today, hopes to remain involved in the sport which has been his living for almost 30 years.
Charnock has been forced to call it a day due to a circulation problem in his groin.
He has been sidelined all year with a blocked artery in the groin and the 45-year-old has been told that the latest of several operations - a 'bypass' - means he cannot ride competitively again.
'It`s one of those things that you have to accept,' Charnock said.
'I`m not sure what I`m going to do but it will be to do with racing - I don`t know anything else, I`ve been in it since I was 15.
'I can walk about OK so I`ll potter about and go racing.
'I`ll wait until the leg has healed and once everything is OK I`ll start to ride out again. That will make a big difference because I enjoyed that as much as anything.
'I don`t know how long that will be because the nerves were damaged in my leg and it stillgets quite painful.
'I`ll have riding out at Tim`s (Easterby) to start with and then I`ll see what comes up.'
Charnock`s riding career spanned 29 years during which the lightweight rode over 600 winners in Britain, landing the Cesarewitch twice.
'I had planned to ride until I was 50 but I`m getting out in one piece - even if they are not quite the same pieces I started with,' he said.
Charnock, who started out as an apprentice with Denys Smith and landed the first victory of his career on Sally`s Choice at Lanark in 1970, gained his first big win on Last Tango in the Ayr Gold Cup in 1976.
After being seen for many years as a journeyman jockey, he had started to make his presence felt in the bigger events in recent seasons and won the Cesarewitch for Mary Reveley on Old Red in 1995 and Turnpole two years later.
He also formed a formidable partnership with Easterby, for whom he won last year`s Lowther Stakes on Jemima, and the 1998 Windsor Castle Stakes and Weatherbys Super Sprint on Flanders.
'The last five or six years have been brilliant,' Charnock added. 'I rode some good fillies like Flanders, Jemima and Pipalong and the winner of the Cesarewitch twice.
'I`ve had a great innings and a lot of fun. I`ve had nearly 30 years in racing but it has gone too quick.'
