‘HOPE FOR A MIRACLE’ Horseman Page Fuller suffered a horrific stroke in the middle of a race that put a promising career on hold, losing her eye just seconds before falling ill while riding Touchthesoul to the first fence.
Doctors say the small cause of her stroke has left the racing world stunned.
In the high-stakes world of horse racing, where split-second decisions and unyielding determination define a career, few stories capture the raw intersection of triumph and tragedy like that of Page Fuller.
The 27-year-old jockey, once a rising star in British National Hunt racing, experienced a moment that shattered not just her body but the illusions of invincibility that riders often cling to. It was September 2022 at Fontwell Park, a modest Sussex track known for its tight turns and unforgiving fences.
Fuller, astride the Jo Davis-trained gelding Touchthesoul, approached the first obstacle in a routine 2m2f handicap chase. What should have been a routine jump became a life-altering catastrophe.
As Touchthesoul lifted off, Fuller felt an inexplicable wave of disorientation wash over her. Her right eye went completely dark, plunging half her world into blindness. Almost simultaneously, spasms gripped her right arm, rendering it weak and numb, pins and needles shooting through like electric shocks.
In those terrifying seconds, she could barely make out the fence ahead, let alone the thundering pack of horses to her right.
“I jumped off feeling absolutely fine, but then felt a bit funny and couldn’t really see anything on my right side,” she later recounted to the Racing Post, her voice steady but laced with the disbelief that still lingered.
Miraculously, Touchthesoul—a steady, if unremarkable, chaser—carried her over the fence without faltering. Fuller managed to pull him up safely just after, dismounting in a daze as race officials rushed to her side.
What followed was a blur of ambulances, scans, and a diagnosis that no athlete wants to hear: a mini-stroke, triggered by a tiny, insidious clot from a torn carotid artery in her neck.
Doctors traced the culprit back to a seemingly innocuous fall at Plumpton just weeks earlier. During that spill, the whiplash-like impact had silently torn the delicate lining of her artery.
It was a “delayed trauma,” they explained—a small tear that festered unnoticed until it clotted and broke free, lodging in her brain and causing the transient ischemic attack. The racing world, no stranger to broken bones and bruised egos, was stunned into silence.
Strokes are the domain of the elderly, the stuff of sedentary regrets, not the lithe, adrenaline-fueled bodies of jockeys in their prime. “It’s like banging your head in a bad way,” Fuller downplayed it at the time, clinging to optimism amid the fear.
But the implications were profound: potential brain damage, uncertain vision recovery, and a career built on balance and instinct now hanging by a thread.
Fuller’s journey to that fateful fence had been one of grit and quiet breakthroughs. Born into racing royalty—her father, Richard, a respected trainer, and her mother, Charlotte, a former showjumper—Page grew up in the saddle, mucking out stables before school and dreaming of the roar of the crowds.
She turned conditional jockey in 2015, navigating the cutthroat jump racing circuit with a work ethic that earned her spots in top yards. By 2021, she was riding for Jamie Snowden, a trainer whose Faringdon stables became her second home.
That season marked her pinnacle: a best-ever £190,000 in prize money, capped by a euphoric Grade 2 victory aboard Anythingforlove in the Jane Seymour Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle at Sandown.
The mare, a leggy chestnut with a heart to match, surged clear in the straight, Fuller urging her on with a whip that felt more like a conductor’s baton than a tool of coercion.
“We had plenty of good days together,” Snowden reflected later, his voice thick with pride and sorrow. “Page has been a big part of our team for years.”
The stroke didn’t just pause her career; it forced a reckoning with the sport’s brutal underbelly. Jockeys, for all their glamour, are gladiators in silk, their 8-stone frames honed by saunas and skipped meals, their spines a mosaic of fractures.
Fuller’s incident spotlighted the hidden vascular risks—carotid dissections from rotational forces in falls, akin to those seen in car crashes or contact sports. Neurologists noted that such mini-strokes, or TIAs, are harbingers; up to 20% evolve into full-blown events if untreated.
For Fuller, immediate anticoagulation therapy and rigorous monitoring became her new routine. She spent weeks in Swindon Hospital, then months in rehabilitation at Oaksey House in Lambourn, the jockeys’ haven funded by the Injured Jockeys Fund.
There, amid physio sessions and balance drills, she rebuilt not just her body but her psyche. “Initially, I was scared by the word ‘stroke’,” she admitted in early 2023. “But it wasn’t that severe—it lasted seconds. More like a bad concussion than the end of the world.”
The racing community rallied with a ferocity that spoke volumes. Messages flooded in from peers like Harry Cobden and Bryony Frost, while trainers like Paul Nicholls donated to her recovery fund. Even Queen Elizabeth II, a racing aficionado in her final months, reportedly sent well-wishes through intermediaries.
By January 2023, Fuller was back riding out, her first canter at Snowden’s yard a tentative triumph. “It felt normal, which was a relief,” she said, the wind in her hair a balm for scarred nerves.
She returned to races in February, piloting a handful of winners that spring, proving her resilience. But the scars—physical and emotional—lingered. Vision flickered back, but depth perception played tricks, and arm twinges served as unwelcome reminders.
Yet, as the jumps season wound down in April 2023, Fuller made a decision that stunned those closest to her: she hung up her boots. A string of minor injuries compounded the stroke’s toll—recurrent falls that chipped away at her confidence.
“I’m ready to try something new,” she announced, her tone resolute yet wistful. The rollercoaster, as she called it, had been exhilarating, but the landings grew too hard.
Snowden, ever the mentor, supported her pivot: “She’s got so much to offer racing beyond the saddle.” Fuller transitioned into training, taking out a license to condition her own string from a base in Gloucestershire.
By late 2023, she had a small yard of pointers and hunters, her first runners showing promise in point-to-points. “It’s different,” she mused in a recent interview. “Less adrenaline, more strategy. But the thrill of seeing a horse you’ve nurtured cross the line? That’s the miracle I didn’t expect.”
Now, at 30, Fuller embodies hope’s quiet evolution. Her stroke, that “small cause” born of a routine fall, didn’t just stun the racing world—it reshaped it. Conversations about rider welfare have intensified, with the British Horseracing Authority mandating enhanced vascular screening post-fall.
Fuller’s story inspired Aidan Macdonald’s own stroke recovery, a flat jockey who returned 17 months after his scare. And in her new role, Fuller mentors young riders, sharing tales of Anythingforlove’s glory and Touchthesoul’s unwitting heroism. “The sport gave me everything,” she says.
“Now, I’m giving back, one horse at a time.”
As winter gallops echo across frosty downs, Fuller’s yard buzzes with potential. No longer chasing the wire at 30 lengths per minute, she’s forging a legacy of second acts. The racing world, once stunned by her fall, now watches in awe at her rise.
In the end, the real miracle isn’t beating the odds—it’s redefining them.
