Leah Kilner celebrated a birthday on Friday. Only twenty-five years young … but it was a birthday Kilner thought she might never see yet, thankfully, here she is, ten-and-a-half months after she suffered critical injuries in a race-fall at Grafton back on July 3, 2022, able to celebrate that particular, special date on the calendar … but, then again, in truth, every day is special if you have fought back from a place where your life was in the balance, and so precariously placed, as it was in Kilner’s case.
Here, Kilner, in an extremely open and frank interview, and trainer Robert Heathcote, to whom Kilner was attached as an apprentice at the time of her accident and whose stable she now assists with light, administrative duties take up the story.
“We all know it looked pretty grim there for a while and that she (Leah) might be in serious trouble,” said Heathcote.
“She still has a long way to go … doctor’s appointments, seeing specialists, surgeries, more rehab. People just won’t be able to comprehend all that she is still going through.
“She is doing an amazing job at my stable. She has just embraced it … this new stable manager/stable assistant role, for want of a better description. She is a very real part of the stable family.
“I’m really delighted for Leah. Like I said, she still has a long road ahead, but she has what I call that magic word … passion. Passion for horses. Passion for racing … and it is so good that she could come back and participate in something that she loves, albeit with the necessary constraints that need to be adhered to in terms of her medical situation.
‘She has been given very clear guidelines on what she can do and what she can’t do, and we make certain she follows that. It’s been a very heartwarming experience for me to work with Leah and her family and to be able to help provide Leah with something that gives her a sense of purpose in life.
“If nothing else, for her to be around horses again is good therapy. She is a perfect person for a role in the stable. She is still finding her way around and can only transition into the role as her circumstances allow, but she couldn’t be more enthusiastic.
“She loves what she is doing, and the staff just love having her here. There is a warm glow when she is around. It is a good mix for everybody.”
“It has just been amazing. I just can’t thank Rob and Mel and the whole team enough for the opportunity they have given me,” said Kilner.
“It’s got me back out into the world, and it has honestly been the best thing for me since I got out of hospital. One, it has allowed me to socialize with people and, two, my brain has actually been stimulated again … but I think the biggest win is that, because of that, I am now actually sleeping again.
“I wasn’t sleeping before. I literally couldn’t get to sleep until something like one o’clock in the morning and I would be awake at 3am. I was getting that little sleep.
“Now, I’m sleeping right through … getting my eight hours sleep again. That’s been my biggest win. I just love it.”
While it is great for Kilner to be able to be able to identify and enjoy the positive progress she is making, she was equally as candid about the battle that she still faces within herself on an on-going basis, a full ten months after the race-fall that changed her life forever.
“I don’t ever expect people to get what I’m going through,” said Kilner. “I hardly get it myself.”
“I do look a lot better than I really am sometimes … so people don’t see the whole picture. Physically I am going ok, but mentally it is still a very hard struggle.
“I think of things in different ways. I’ve experienced feelings I’ve never experienced before … feelings I don’t ever want to experience. Some of them are deep and dark and are horrible places to go … whereas, when I am at ‘work’ I have the best support around me. Rob and Mel, especially, have been just so amazing to me.
“Rob says I am part of the stable family and that is exactly how they all make me feel.”
Kilner was already part of that family prior to her accident, being attached to the Heathcote stable as an apprentice jockey, but the fact they were there for her, to embrace her emotionally and offer her, not only a way forward but, importantly, a means to stay in the industry which had been her life from a very early age, was not a given.
That the Heathcote stable welcomed Kilner with open arms back to stable life in whatever capacity she wanted at a pace carefully monitored so that she was not pushed along, but rather abided by every specified work-cover direction, stands as a real credit to Rob Heathcote and his team, but Kilner is one hundred percent right when she says she thanks the stable ‘for the opportunity.’
That’s what it was … an opportunity … and it was up to Kilner whether she would take advantage of it or not. It was always going to be a slow beginning.
“It was a difficult adjustment,” explained Kilner. “The first time I was allowed out of hospital … I was allowed out for an afternoon drive with mum … I thought it was a dream. I didn’t think it was real.
“I can only remember little snippets … but all I know is I just wanted to go to the stables to see my ponies. I know it was reported somewhere that when I first woke up, I told my dad not to give away the horses.
“Honestly, I personally don’t know if that was true or not. Everybody tells me, ‘yes’ it was, but I have no memory of that time. I have nothing.
“To me, I woke up on August 1 (a month after the fall), but obviously I was awake in patches before that. When I woke up on August 1, I quite literally thought I was in a dream … and it was horrific.
“I was doing things to myself to try and wake myself up and it wasn’t until I went to the races that I came out of that dream.
“I remember sitting there looking at the race-book and I looked up and I said to my friend, this is real, isn’t it? I wasn’t in a car accident. I was in a race fall!”
Altogether, Kilner was in hospital for two months following her fall … and for most of that time it would be fair to say it would have been easier for her to fold rather than to push forward, but her character trait of true toughness refused to allow the first option into the game.
So, push forward she did.
“If you want to call it toughness, I guess you have got to credit my mum and dad for that,” suggested Kilner.
“I was brought up to be strong. I was brought up in the racing game. You had to go with the flow. You had to be tough and don’t take shit from anyone. You’ve got to stand your ground.
“Mum and dad have always taught me that. I never thought about applying it in this type of critical situation, but I do believe I did do exactly that and that helped me a lot.
“I’m also a Taurus … so I’m pretty stubborn and I think that helped me as well.
“If I didn’t have those qualities about me, I think it is fair to say I wouldn’t be here … but, it does take a lot of effort and that effort does take it out of you.
“If you had been in my shoes, you would realize it has taken a lot … a bloody lot … to get this far.”
In terms of the help she received getting this far, Kilner also wanted to make a particular point with reference to the Queensland Rogues ownership group.
“I am the ambassador for the Queensland Rogues,” said Kilner, “and I have so much to thank them for..
“It’s fantastic. It gets me at the races. It gets me involved. I do little pre-race previews for them and give them my thoughts on the races. I love doing that. It’s such a happy environment. The Rogues have done so much for me, so I feel the least I can do is give something back to them.
“We’ve got The Big Goodbye with Rob. Obviously, I won so many races on him and had such an affinity with that horse.
“You know what … when I left the hospital I never cried. I actually started thinking to myself, maybe I don’t cry anymore. What’s wrong?
“When I got out of the hospital, The Big Goodbye was in the paddock having a spell and then, one day, a couple of weeks later, I went around to the stables and he had come back in from a spell that day. It was the first time I’d seen him since my accident … and I balled my eyes out.
“And when I cried, everybody thought there was something wrong with me. They came running and said, ‘what’s wrong, what’s wrong’ … and I said ‘nothing.’ He was the only horse to make me so emotional.”
“But, hey, I didn’t think I’d see twenty-five for a while there, and look at me now, I’m halfway to fifty,” joked Kilner.
And that’s a nice, neat touch of optimism with which to conclude Kilner’s story at this stage.
While it is true that Kilner’s fightback … one that has been a constant battle until now … is not over yet, that should not in any way detract from the just how far she has come since that terrible day last July when she was airlifted from the track in a grave condition.
Her progress … hard-earned every step along the way … has been nothing short of remarkable.
It is as the words of the song, in part, says, ‘the road is long, with many a winding turn that leads us to who knows where, who knows where. But I’m strong … we’ll get there!
As will you Leah.
The racing world is very proud of the example you are setting.
