In a revealing interview, the Czech rider who led the standings four times in Germany talks to Jon Lees about his attempts to cope following his life-threatening fall at Mannheim in 2020.
Germany: Frankie Dettori probably put it best. “Minarik, you are a f***ing miracle!” suggested the ebullient Italian.
The ‘Minarik’ in question is four-time German champion Filip Minarik, and the message was one of the many sent to the Czech rider in the aftermath of a life-threatening fall at Mannheim in July 2020.
Prague-born Minarik rode 1,669 winners in Germany alone and has 13 G1 victories to his name. But a long and distinguished career was brought to a sudden halt by the accident which occurred when he was aboard longshot Dusky Dance in a minor €3,000 event at a minor German track.
Minarik was left unconscious with injuries to his head, left leg and ankle. Yet as bad as it was, for once the old cliché was spot on, as this really could have been a lot worse. When Minarik lay in a hospital bed in a coma, there were genuine fears he might not pull through; he says he was only “50-50” to survive.
But with wife Katja at his bedside – constantly playing the many video and audio messages sent by the racing community, which also raised over £100,000 towards his care – Minarik eventually woke up.
The physical damage – a broken ankle and broken bones in the left leg – would mend. But the brain injury he also suffered left Minarik having to accept he would never return to the saddle.
‘I will never be a jockey again’
“I will never be a jockey again because I have no balance and no short-term memory,” explains Minarik, 47. “I remember things from 20 years ago. I remember riding in the Arc and in Japan, but don’t ask me about yesterday or this morning.”
Minarik spent four months in hospital, learning how to walk again, and there are still obvious challenges nearly three years on. However, he is grateful just to be alive – and, as he attempts to come to terms with the stark new reality of a life away from race-riding, all those messages of goodwill and support remain just as important as they were back when he was left stricken on the Mannheim turf.
“I still remember nothing about the accident,” he says. “My memory is missing one or two months before the accident and three or four months after. Not much has come back – it’s getting a bit better every day but just small bits.
“I have watched the accident on video replay," he adds. "It’s something that could happen in any race, in a Group 1 or a bad race at Mannheim, and it did happen in a bad race in Mannheim.
‘I was very close to dying’
“That was typical of my career to ride a 40-1 chance in a bad race at Mannheim. That is the way I won my four championships in Germany. It was the only way to beat Eduardo Pedroza and Andrasch Starke at their best.
“I was very close to dying or living, a 50-50 chance. But I watched all the videos where Frankie Dettori was speaking, William Buick and all the other world-famous jockeys helping raise money for us.
“I survived – that’s the most important thing. Sure I complain. I’m not happy because I cannot ride again but I can go racing and to be able to do that makes me happy.”
Thankfully Minarik hasn’t forgotten his riding accomplishments, which he sometimes rewatches on Youtube to lift his spirits. And there are plenty such highlights to watch, as Minarik was Germany’s champion jockey in 2005, 2011, 2016 and 2017 (when he shared the title with Alex Pietsch). The well-travelled jockey also spent three winters riding in Japan and competed in the Shergar Cup in 2019, where he rode his first winner in Britain.
His new routine has taken a lot of adjustment; he has come to terms with not being able to ride again but misses the racetrack. “I can walk but I am always tired and I have not much balance,” he says.
“Walking uses up a lot of power. Every evening after I spend a day out I am wrecked. It’s like my brain lost 20 or 25 per cent of its energy.
“At the races I am happy; at home less so because there is not much to do,” he admits. “Racing was 35 years of my life so I enjoy being among racing people. The jockeys’ room was my second home for over 30 years and my heart is still there.”
Born a five-minute bicycle ride from the racetrack in Prague, a career in racing became inevitable for a boy whose father Ferdinand was a dual champion jockey and later trainer.
“I loved it,” says Minarik. “I rode my first race aged 16 in Carlsbad and I finished dead last. In 1996 I moved to Germany. I was doing okay but I was not what everyone expected as the son of a champion jockey. I was not good enough.”
If Minarik’s early returns were modest in Germany, his business had picked up by 1999 and in 2000 he joined champion trainer Peter Schiergen in Cologne.
“In my first year in Cologne I rode exactly 100 winners, which included my first Group winner on Tertullian for Gestut Schlenderhan,” he recalls. “He was very well-bred, a close relative of Galileo.
“From there my career got better every year. In 2005 I became German champion jockey for the first time when I beat Adrie de Vries on the last day.”
The big-race wins soon followed. Minarik rode his first G1 winner in Italy on Konigstiger in the Gran Criterium in 2004, after which the major successes began to flow regularly thanks to horses such as Ganbarda, Prince Flori, Night Magic, Salomina and Temida.
‘I was riding like crazy’
Minarik stayed with Schiergen until 2013 when he experienced what he describes as “a big burnout” resulting in certain issues with alcohol.
“I was riding like crazy and I was travelling a lot in my car,” he says. “I went to Switzerland, France, Belgium. I was every day in a car – I drove 150,000km and I was drinking heavily because I could not sleep and that broke me down.
“I stopped riding after Baden-Baden in September and my wife drove me to a clinic. I spent 90 days there and stopped drinking, I hope forever.”
A role with Gestut Schlenderhan was there for Minarik when he returned, an association that introduced him to Ivanhowe. Under Minarik, the top-class German colt won two G1 races either side of the 2014 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, in which he finished 18th of 20.
“We won the Grosser Preis von Baden, then they put William Buick on him in the Arc but the horse wasn’t good enough,” he recalls. “He came back and we won the Grosser Preis von Bayern in Munich and then finished sixth in the Japan Cup.
“But that win in Baden-Baden was my best moment because Ivanhowe was the best horse I ever rode,” he goes on.
“We beat Sea The Moon who was the hot favourite after winning the German Derby by 11 lengths. The dogs were barking that Sea The Moon was not at his best. I knew it, so I knew I had a very good chance and we did. Sea The Moon was second.
‘My career was flying’
“My career was flying again. As a champion in Germany in 2016 and 2017 I got to spend three winters riding in Japan. That was also a big highlight for me.”
What is more, Minarik hasn’t been forgotten in Japan, where fans were among those to raise money for him while he was in hospital after his 2020 fall.
However, he also accepts that by that stage his riding career was in decline. His role with Gestut Schlenderhan had ended in 2019 when the private training centre where Ivanhowe’s trainer Jean-Pierre Cavalho was based, was closed. “I was looking for a new job and I was struggling already,” he reflects.
Since the accident, the Minarik family have moved from Cologne to Hanover, where six-year-old daughter Finja will start school in September. “I moved to Hanover because my wife’s family live there,” he explains.
“That’s very difficult because Cologne is the capital of horse racing in Germany. It’s like moving from Newmarket to Birmingham. Nothing happens in Hanover but having my mother-in-law nearby is a very big help.”
There are dark moments, though. “Nobody knows who I am and I really miss the racetrack,” he says. “I always thought I wouldn't need it, but I really need a bit of it. As a jockey I rode every morning, there was adrenaline, parties, and now not much happens in my life.”
With no racing in Germany, the winter months can be challenging. Last year Minarik broke up the period with visits to Cagnes-sur-Mer, St Moritz for the White Turf meeting and Dubai, all of them locations where he knows he will be see his friends, the fellow jockeys who have been so important to him.
“I still have all the messages on my phone and I still listen to them,” he says. “Sometimes Frankie Dettori sends me a video or messages on WhatsApp and it really cheers me up.
“The one from Freddy Tylicki was one I will always remember,” he goes on. German-born Tylicki was left paralysed from the waist down when he was seriously injured in a four horse pile-up at Kempton in 2016.
“Freddy said something like, ‘I know you are in a very bad situation but you have to wake up now. I experienced a very bad thing three years ago myself but now you’re in a worse situation than me and I know you can handle it.’
“Another thing Freddy said was, ‘Don’t complain about what you lost. Be happy about what you still have.’ That has been very important to me in my life. I try to be happy but it’s a long process to adjust.”
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