Racing: Spy carries Swinburn on a return mission

Walter Swinburn is back race-riding for the first time this year at Nottingham today. The three-time Derby-winning jockey has just one mount, on Spy Knoll for the leading trainer Michael Stoute.

Swinburn delayed his start to the 1997 season until the completion of a court case which saw his being fined pounds 500 after he admitted assaulting a restaurant owner and damaging a glass door. During the hearing at Newmarket it emerged that he has been suffering from an eating disorder which reduces his tolerance to alcohol.

Swinburn's return is in the Lowdham Maiden Stakes, the same race as that chosen by several leading Newmarket trainers to saddle their first runners of the new Flat season.

Henry Cecil, who failed narrowly to beat Godolphin's Saeed bin Suroor for the trainers' championship last year, runs Shaheen in the Lowdham. His stable jockey Kieren Fallon has the ride.

Shaheen and Swinburn's Spy Knoll are opposed among others by Shawm, from David Loder's powerful stable, to be ridden by Kevin Darley.

Shane Broderick, one of Ireland's top jump jockeys, is to be transferred to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, for treatment to the serious injuries he received at Fairyhouse on Monday last week.

Broderick has been in intensive care with neck and spinal injuries. In a statement issued on behalf of his family yesterday, Dr Walter Halley, the Turf Club medical officer, stated: "Shane Broderick's condition remains unchanged."

David Bridgwater was yesterday recovering well following surgery on the arm he broke when brought down on Time Won't Wait in the Red Rum Chase at Aintree on Saturday.

Bridgwater underwent a two-hour operation at Fazakerley Hospital in Liverpool on Sunday afternoon and is being kept there for observation for two or three more days.