Battered Wyer retires to work for Turf Club

Irish jump jockey Lorcan Wyer has announced his retirement from race-riding. A popular figure on the Northern jumps scene for more than a decade, Wyer is returning to Ireland.

Irish jump jockey Lorcan Wyer has announced his retirement from race-riding. A popular figure on the Northern jumps scene for more than a decade, Wyer is returning to Ireland.

"I'll be starting work in the non-too distant future for the Irish Turf Club," he said yesterday. "I'm going to be a racing official, which will cover a number of jobs, including starting, judging and stipendiary steward."

The 35-year-old rode his first winner in Britain back in 1986 on Omerta for Homer Scott in the National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. Attached to the Peter Easterby stable soon afterwards, more than 550 winners followed. Wyer gained his second Cheltenham Festival success when Barton, trained by Easterby's son, Tim, took the 1999 Royal & SunAlliance Novices' Hurdle.

"I've had a ball and I'm finishing in one piece," Wyer said. Everyone will be thankful for that after a career punctuated by some sickening falls in its latter years. "It's surprising what a plastic surgeon can do," he observed after sustaining serious facial injuries in 1996.