He currently rides for both Alex Van Den Bos and Peter Cornish, but is being forced to step back from being trackside after recovering from a fall last week which left him concussed, with blurred vision and - in his own words - where he "nearly bit my tongue off".

"I've been riding and doing trackwork since I was 15, and I'm 45 now," the 61-year-old said, tongue in cheek.

"I've only been taken to hospital once, and had to take myself there one other time after I'd had my face cut a bit for a tetanus shot."

Last week, however, Mr Camilleri said he'd gone to jump out of the blocks on a young filly when his foot slipped out of the stirrup.

"I had a foot out, normally when that happens you can get it back in quickly but for whatever reason it didn't happen," he said.

"It was her first jump out with other horses - she did nothing wrong, I just lost my footing."

It was the last concrete memory he had until he was being put in the MRI hours later, although he was only unconscious for less than two minutes.

"I can kind of remember [my partner] Carmel being at the track but I can't remember coming off and I can't remember going in the ambulance," he said.

After a week of blurred vision and symptoms of concussion, Mr Camilerri said Friday was the best he'd felt since the accident and is on the mend.