"You're a lot happier as a person when you're back doing what you want to be doing".
The words of Rachael Blackmore recalling her time on the sidelines after suffering a fractured ankle and hip injury in a fall at Killarney. A summer of frustration after a glorious spring.
In March, the Tipperary jockey partnered Honeysuckle to win the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham. She would end up leading rider at the Festival with six winners. A few weeks later her steering job on Minella Times saw her become the first female jockey to win the Aintree National.
Blackmore was on top of the world. And then came the spill from Merry Poppins in a Handicap Hurdle at the County Kerry venue.
Thankfully for Blackmore, her time out injured was not at the height of the jumps season.
"I was very grateful it happened when it did and not in March or April," she told RTÉ's Game On.
"It's an inevitable thing when you're a jump jockey to pick up an injury at some point. You see Seán Flanagan, Jack Kennedy and Jordan Gainford getting injured recently. That's the sport we're in. It's inevitable.
"The hardest part is the horses you are missing out on. I couldn't get too down about it; it would have been a lot harder watching Honeysuckle in Cheltenham.
"I think as jump jockeys we are programmed not to think too much about it; it's part of what happens."
Blackmore's recovery saw her spend a few weeks confined to a wheelchair. To be so restricted has given her "a massive appreciation" for those who spend their lives wheelchair-bound.
"You realise that something so simple as parking on a footpath, and I've done it myself, is actually obstructing people's right to get around. I definitely saw a different side of life and I was extremely grateful that I was only in (the wheelchair) for three weeks and was in crutches for a while after that."
Watching the Olympics took up a few weeks of Blackmore's routine.
"I was never so grateful that the Olympics were on," she added. "I was so into everything, even rock climbing. I was there in my wheelchair dying to have a go at it. I had lots of other stuff to catch up on, so I was never bored."
The 32-year also revealed that she had no issues concerning her weight while on the sidelines.
"I lost weight early on, sitting down all the time, not moving, so I lost a lot of muscle," she said.
"I was working at trying to get as much protein into me as I could to help build myself back up again.
"I'm lucky that my weight is so below my minimum weight so I was never going to come back too heavy. Right side of the scales for a jump jockey."
Blackmore had a four-timer at Naas last weekend. Big meetings at Punchestown, Fairyhouse and Leopardstown at Christmas will no doubt occupy minds, with the jockey excited by the young horses in Henry's (De Bromhead) yard that have shown progress from last year.
