Broadcaster-turned-assistant trainer Neville Ender has said he is lucky to be alive after a frightening accident that left him with a bleed on the brain.<\/p>\n
Mystery surrounds the exact nature of the incident, which occurred at the Malton yard from which his daughter Sara<\/a> has trained since 2014.<\/p>\n But he is recovering from an encounter with the six-year-old Mr Zippi<\/a>, of which he has no memory at all.<\/p>\n “I was taking him out to the field and I let him have a pick of grass and that’s the last I remember,” said Ender, 62, who has owned horses for many years.<\/p>\n “One of the staff found me on my back. She rang Sara and said, ‘You’d better come, your dad’s flat out’.<\/p>\n “I walked back to the yard but I didn’t know where I was or anything. The girls were washing down a couple of horses who’d just been ridden and I had no idea who the horses were, so Sara said we’d better go to A&E.”<\/p>\n Ender, who delivered the first online horserace commentary in the early days of the internet, added: “I had a CT scan and they said I’d had a bleed on the brain.<\/p>\n “I had a massive haematoma on my face, which has just started to go down in the last few days. I didn’t have an x-ray but they think I probably cracked two or three ribs or tore some muscles.<\/p>\n ‘It’s the first time in my life I’ve felt I wasn’t invincible’<\/strong><\/p>\n “They kept me in for 48 hours and I feel a lot better now. I’ve been very lucky; it could have been a lot worse.”<\/p>\n Reflecting on the lasting effects, Ender said: “We’ve had horses for 20 years and it’s shaken my confidence a bit. I’m as fit as any 62-year-old. I run and I’m out with the horses for six hours every day, and it’s the first time in my life I’ve felt I wasn’t invincible. It’s a relief that I’m getting back to normal.<\/p>\n “Nobody knows what happened and my worst fear is that I just collapsed, but it’s 99 per cent certain that what’s happened is that Mr Zippi has whacked me in the face. He’s a bit sharp, so it wouldn’t be a surprise, and he’s a big, strong horse.”<\/p>\n There was better news last week when Indian Sunbird<\/a> gave the yard its first winner for 11 months by landing a hurdle race at Southwell.<\/p>\n “That was brilliant,” said Ender. “We have 12 or 14 horses and we’re operating at the lowest level, buying cheap horses who have issues. We were desperate for another winner and given what’s happened it was extra special.”<\/p>\n Ender hopes to build on that success when new recruit Inspiring Speeches<\/a> makes his debut for the yard at Beverley on Wednesday.<\/p>\n “We think he’ll run well,” he said. “He’ll be a big price but we think he’s several pounds in front of his mark.”<\/p>\n Now read these:<\/strong><\/p>\n Nightmare day for Seamus Mullins as popular star Tommie Beau beaten at dreaded 1.01 before winner disqualified for weighing in light<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Rejuvenated jockey celebrates first winner since returning from 20-month injury layoff<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Ralph Beckett takes advantage of unique circumstances to unleash Epsom dark horse ‘who will be suited by the Derby’<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n To celebrate The Story of Horseracing in 20 Races, the Racing Post’s big weekly series for 2025, you can get your first month of\u00a0<\/strong>Racing Post+ Ultimate<\/a>\u00a0for \u00a320 when you sign up via web using code STORY20 \u2013 that’s a whopping 60% discount. Available only to new and returning customers. Subscription will auto-renew at \u00a349.95 unless you call our cancellation line to cancel.<\/strong> Sign up now.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broadcaster-turned-assistant trainer Neville Ender has said he is lucky to be alive after a frightening accident that left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-135539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-racing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114579041521246169","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}