Even when he won the National, Lee was soon thinking about racing the next day.<\/p>\n
He wishes he had “lived in the moment” and says the accident has given him fresh perspective.<\/p>\n
“I can’t reach my ear. I can’t reach my forehead. I can’t give my wife a cuddle. When Rob plays a football match, I can’t put my arm round him and say ‘well done kidda’ or watch Amy perform in her musical theatre and give her a hug and say ‘that was class,'” he says.<\/p>\n
“I’m not moaning, it’s just made me realise that when I was riding it was the be-all and end-all and I did it to the best of my ability. There’s more to life, isn’t there?”<\/p>\n
Irishman Lee, who is based in North Yorkshire, is grateful for the support he has received from family, friends, colleagues and the Injured Jockeys’ Fund (IJF).<\/p>\n
“It’s been really tough but the help we’ve had has been incredible,” Becky tells the documentary. “Anyone would do it for their partner, the father of their children. The IJF have been here anytime, night and day.”<\/p>\n
Lee receives physiotherapy and other help at the Matt Hampson Foundation Get Busy Living Centre in Leicestershire. It was set up by former rugby player Hampson, who was also paralysed after an accident.<\/p>\n
“Graham is just one of the nicest people in the world and he doesn’t understand why people care about him,” says Tilly Cumming – the foundation’s clinical lead.<\/p>\n
“I think it must be something that is very difficult to get your head round, when you are very driven and your job involves a lot of physicality – to have a high-level spinal injury that means all of that is taken away.”<\/p>\n
Despite being told by a spinal-cord consultant that he will never walk again, Lee remains adamant it could be a possibility.<\/p>\n
“Although he could be right, I’m not willing to accept that,” he says. “Hopefully science somewhere, some day, sooner rather than later – something will happen.”<\/p>\n
The irony of being injured on the Flat, when there is a greater risk in jump races, is not lost on the former jockey.<\/p>\n
“It’s mad. There’s no rules, when you think of the falls I took, which every jump jockey gets, and I had a lot of bad injuries,” he adds.<\/p>\n
“Bones heal, some bad head injuries which all healed, and then you get a fall on the Flat, not even in a race, in the stalls, and I’ve hit the deck from five feet, and this doesn’t heal. And this is what is a complete mind warp.<\/p>\n
“It’s so difficult for me to get my head around what has happened. I never sat still. But the only good thing to come of my injury is I’ve met some incredible people, that I’ve never met before.<\/p>\n
“We keep going, we keep hoping something will happen somewhere because if you don’t have hope, you’ve got nothing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even when he won the National, Lee was soon thinking about racing the next day. He wishes he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-188110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}