Love Dreams 'absolutely fine' after tumbling down stairs into bowels of Meydan

Love Dreams, who threw jockey Royston Ffrench and fell down two flights of concrete stairs into the bowels of Meydan racecourse on Thursday, has emerged from his dramatic ordeal relatively unscathed and should be able to resume his career before long.

The five-year-old was in the paddock being prepared to take his place in the field for the 7f handicap when the incident took place.

"I thought it would be about 1-1,000 he'd broken his neck and killed himself, but unbelievably he's absolutely fine," reported Charlie Johnston, assistant to his father Mark, who was in Dubai supervising Love Dreams before the final race on the card, from which he was subsequently withdrawn.

The staircase at Meydan down which Love Dreams fell

Johnston did not see the incident, nor footage of it, but was among the first on the scene afterwards and could scarcely believe his eyes.

He said: "I'd legged Royston up and then gone back to the centre of the paddock to speak to the owners so I didn't see it happen, but I heard a fairly loud bang, which I think was Love Dreams crashing through the plastic rails on the edge of the paddock and getting rid of Royston, then as he's got up and tried to gallop away he sent himself down two flights of concrete stairs.

"Some say he jumped a concrete wall. I didn't see that, and looking at the skid marks in the grass close to the top of the stairs I think he may have just got up and galloped off after getting rid of Royston and just not known where he was going."

He added: "When I got to the top of the stairs I thought I was sure to be confronted by a dead horse, but he was on his feet and looking up as if to say, 'What am I doing down here?'

"I went straight down and took the tack off, and all he'd done was taken a little skin off his stifles and lost a tooth. Apart from that there was not a bother on him. It was absolutely extraordinary. I'll be surprised if I ever see anything like it again in my lifetime."

Charlie Johnston: 'I'll be surprised if I ever see anything like it again in my lifetime'Credit: Louise Pollard

Extricating Love Dreams from his predicament could have been quite an ordeal, but that was not how it turned out.

Johnston said: "The team at Meydan were fantastic and it went surprisingly well in the circumstances. He was given a light sedative, then they got someone on either side of his head and the equivalent of stalls handlers with quoits behind him, and they got him up the stairs in one go."

Love Dreams was on surprisingly good terms with himself on Friday morning, and all being well will be racing again before too long.

Johnston said: "Our travelling head girl Robynne Watton gave him a lead out and he seems fine. He's had some bute and so he couldn't race at the next couple of meetings anyway, but he won't be stopping racing on account of a freak accident like that. It will be business as usual."

Ffrench was able to walk away from the incident unaided, but was understandably shaken by it.

Get ahead of the game with Get Your Eye In – exclusive Saturday preview content on racingpost.com and the Racing Post mobile app from 2pm on Friday