Joe Fanning closing in on return after missing seven months with nightmare shoulder injury

Prolific jockey Joe Fanning is back riding out and hopes it will be "just a matter of weeks" before he can return to action after being sidelined for more than seven months.

He missed the second half of the 2022 campaign after fracturing his left shoulder in two places when unseated in a race at Musselburgh in June of last year.

His shoulder was strapped up for 12 weeks and the bones have healed but he is now working on repairing the resultant muscle wastage, with physio and gym work at Jack Berry House rehabilitation and fitness centre in Malton.

"I'm getting there slowly," he said on Wednesday. "Everything's going well and I hope that I'm in the home straight now. It's been a long old time but I knew from the start that it would take a while.

"The fractures have healed great and they weren't the problem, it's the muscle that I lost and I'm building that up now."

Fanning, 52, took a significant step in his recovery process when he resumed riding out at Charlie Johnston's yard in Middleham.

"I started with one lot last Saturday and I'm stepping that up now," he said. "Touch wood, that went fine but they still want me to go to Jack Berry House three days a week to do physio and gym work."

The jockey cannot put an exact date on his likely return to action but said: "I hope it won't be far away now. I have a few tests to pass then I should be okay. I hope it will be just a matter of weeks."

Fanning has ridden 2,737 winners in Britain, putting him second only to Frankie Dettori among currently licensed jockeys. Just over half of those have been for the Johnston yard, to which he has been attached since the early-1990s.

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