TOP Tasmanian trainer-reinsman Nathan Ford will require surgery next week as a result of a nasty fall at Devonport last week.
The fall left Ford with horrendous facial injuries comprising a fractured right cheek bone and eye socket.
Ford hit the deck and was trampled on when his charge Marossi fell near the turn out of the home straight.
Chief steward Anthony O’Connell said he is hoping to have the inquiry heard at the Hobart meeting on Sunday night.
“Nathan basically had the field run over the top of him and his skull cap was left with a severe dent in the rear of it where he was struck (by a hoof and a wheel),” McConnell said.
Ford requires surgery to have four steel plates inserted in his face.
“I have been booked in to have the surgery to insert the four steel plates next Wednesday,” Ford said.
“They had to wait until the swelling had subsided before being able to set a date for the operation.”
“No fall is a good fall but I’m lucky because I could have ended up with much worse injuries given I was trampled on by two horses that were following behind when I fell,” he said.
Meanwhile Bagdad trainer-driver Paul Williams has escaped his fall in Launceston on Sunday night with a broken collar bone, suffered when his horse Ponderosas Gamble appeared to cross his legs and fall on the home turn in a heat of the Globe Derby Stakes.
Neither Marossi nor Ponderosas Gamble suffered any serious harm from their respective falls.