A NORTH Yorkshire horse trainer is recovering in hospital after falling from her horse and breaking several bones at the weekend.

Cherry Coward, the daughter of veteran trainer Mick Easterby and mother to amateur rider Jacqueline Coward, was airlifted to hospital on Saturday after her horse fell while jumping a gate.

She was initially said to have fractured a veterbra, broke a bone in her neck and fractured three ribs in the fall.

Mrs Coward – who trains horses at Dalby, near Sheriff Hutton – underwent surgery on her spine at Hull Royal Infirmary on Sunday night when surgeons found the break was slightly worse than first thought. However, she is now in recovery.

Jacqueline said her mother had been knocked out for 30 seconds after the accident.

She said: “When mum did come around she was complaining about her back, but she was wriggling about and trying to get up.

“She was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary in the air ambulance and it was found she had shattered her T5, which is just above mid spine.

“Fortunately, there is no paralysis or anything.”

Visiting her in hospital, Jacqueline said her mother smiled when she heard she had won at Ripon point-to-point on their horse Wizadora.

The Easterby family have held their Sheriff Hutton Steeplechases point-to-point each January in aid of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance since Jacqueline was airlifted to hospital after suffering a head injury in a fall in Catterick in 2009.