From selling platers to selling plates: former rider Dominic Fox flying high

Trying to reinvent yourself after a career in the saddle can be a daunting prospect for a retiring jockey, but anyone seeking inspiration should take a look at the success Dominic Fox is enjoying.

The 38-year-old rode more than 200 winners in eight different countries on the Flat during a 12-year career not devoid of success, but swapping selling platers on the track for selling TheraPlates off it has seen his second career blast into orbit.

Designed in America by Chip Kreiling, TheraPlate technology uses wave vortex stimulation to counter effects of chronic inflammation conditions, speed healing, pain reduction, and aid in the prevention of injury in horses and humans.

Best of all for Fox, the sole distributor of the TheraPlate on this side of the Atlantic, is the fact the product’s popularity is growing at a faster rate than the final furlong of a Group 1 sprint.

"The wave vortex stimulation causes involuntary muscle contraction which accelerates the blood flow up to four times the usual speed," Fox explains in layman's terms of what happens when a horse stands on the plate.

"With increased blood flow you get more red blood cells and with more red blood cells comes faster healing. This year alone I can name eight or nine horses whose connections have been told will never be ridden again but who are back winning."

After being kicked in the stomach by a horse in 2009, Fox returned to the saddle from life-threatening injury in 2011 and, aided by the support of Newmarket trainers Alan Bailey and Roger Varian, was making a decent fist of things before taking a punt and heading to America in 2013. That adventure ultimately proved short-lived but, crucially, introduced him to TheraPlates.

He recalls: "I’d got to the point in England where I knew my position as a jockey, and off the back of a really good season I thought why not try America.

"I had a few rides around Arlington, Kentucky and Keeneland and was getting on all right, but I had what I thought was a ‘warning shot’.

"I was riding one at Churchill Downs and it flipped over going into the stalls and killed itself. I was lucky to step out of the way but I’d just had a little girl at the time and, rather than waiting for one to land on me, I thought, 'That will do'."

He continues: "When we came back from America, I didn’t really want to ride out any more and we were looking for a different career path.

"It was my wife Francesca who'd seen the TheraPlate working in America. She was hospitality and sponsorship manager at Wolverhampton racecourse at the time and initially the contact was there to try to get the plates put in at Wolverhampton, but we had a discussion and said why not do it for ourselves?

"We contacted Chip and he was happy for us to start distributing. We got our first plate at the backend of 2016. That’s how it all started."

Although it took five months to sell that initial plate, the phone at TheraPlate UK headquarters in Lincolnshire has been ringing off the hook since the start of the year, with top yards associated with racing, showjumping and dressage using the product.

"We’ve got Olympians and champion trainers using them," says the former jockey. "Racehorse trainers like Mick Appleby, Clive Cox, Brian Meehan, Emma Lavelle and Amy Murphy are using them, and it’s gone into another stratosphere in such a short space of time."

While most equine products are initially developed for humans before being transferred for use with horses, TheraPlate is heading in the opposite direction and Fox has recently had to employ five additional members of staff to meet demand.

"We’re thinking that the human market is probably the way it’s going to go," he says. "We’ve had very early communications with the NHS and have private hospitals buying them. Big tech companies are buying them for their office staff too, it’s just huge."

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