Grand National jockey announces retirement
Grand National-winning jockey Mick Fitzgerald has announced his retirement. The 38-year-old suffered neck and knee injuries during the famous steeplechase at the grand national in Aintree, UK, this year and decided to hang up his silks. Fitzgerald said: "It is hard to swallow when you finally realise it is the end. "I suppose in many ways I’m lucky really. I smashed four vertebrae in my neck from the C6 up to C3, they were fairly badly damaged and I was lucky first of all to go to Royal Liverpool University Hospital and have a couple of discs removed and have the whole thing stabilised, because two of them had penetrated my spinal cord and I was a very lucky boy really.