Meet Ian Popham, the jockey who is riding winners again after suffering 10 fractures in his pelvis He was bringing a horse back into a yard after schooling it for Caroline Keevil, who trains at Motcombe in Dorset and is one of his principal patrons, when it reared up and came over backwards on him, breaking his pelvis in six places. "It made a bad job of it," Popham, 23, said on Wednesday. I was in Frenchay Hospital for a month, I had four or five operations, pins in and out, and there were complications because of the other internal damage around the pelvis as well as infections and I got pretty sick. Having gone in weighing 10st I came out weighing 8st - it wasn't a good time. The road to recovery was a long and winding one. Popham was not allowed to put weight on one side of his body for three months and, when he started to build up again this time last year, he found that he had lost all the muscle down that side. "It took a long time to get anywhere near riding out again," he said. I had a month at Oaksey House [the Injured Jockeys Fund's rehabilitation centre in Lambourn] but by March I was back in the saddle and, as the season had just about gone, I just kept riding out and came back in July, some nine months after the injury. The comeback started quite well. It was a quiet time of year but he had a couple of winners, was getting plenty of rides and was ticking along quite happily when, in October, just as this season was about to get going again in earnest, he went to Plumpton for a ride in a bumper. "I'd ridden the horse at home and he'd never put a foot wrong," Popham said. But down at the start he froze, then flipped over and I immediately knew I'd done it again. The other lads were circling round me waiting to start and I told them what I'd done. One of the pins inserted the first time was bent 10 degrees. "I think it took the brunt of it and saved me a bit," he said. There were only four fractures this time and it was a lot less complicated. I'd have been worried if it was the old fractures that had gone again, I'd have thought there was a weakness there, but they were four new ones. I was only in hospital five days this time and it didn't need surgery. Second time around he put even more effort into his comeback. "A lot of people thought I wouldn't come back so, if anything, I worked even harder," he explained. I knew people would be watching, so it was important I came back better than ever and 110 per cent fit. This time I spent six weeks in Oaksey House and I put on half a stone in muscle. Through all of this there was never a moment when Popham doubted he would return. "When it happened the second time I did get a bit "why me? What have I done to deserve this?"" he admitted. I was pretty cut up. Mattie Batchelor said it was God's way of testing you. But I was always determined to come back again and, actually, the more others doubted me the more I wanted to prove everyone wrong. "Never for a moment did I think "that's it." In hospital there's always someone worse off than you in the grand scheme and I'd go into Oaksey House and see Isabel Tompsett [who suffered serious head injuries in a fall in May 2011] every day knowing what she had been through. She was a great inspiration. After his comeback victories on Johnny Og for Martin Keighley at Catterick last Thursday and Bally Legend for Keevil at Kempton on Saturday, Popham now has one very simple wish; a clear run.