Wayne left school in 1999 and went straight into horse racing and trained to be a jockey, in the sport he loved. He started as an apprentice on the flat before training to ride over obstacles as a conditional jockey (National Hunt Jockey). In 2008 while competing in a National Hunt hurdle race at Exeter Racecourse he came off his horse, sustaining injuries to his head, as well as breaking his back and damaging his spinal cord at T4/5.

Wayne had surgery the day after his fall and after a few days suffered another setback as his salt levels dropped, and the doctors decided to induce a coma. For four months, he didn’t even know that he was paralysed. When he came around e was unable to talk and subsequently had years of speech therapy. Since then he has been on a big journey, from learning how to go the toilet to discovering how important the correct diet is. 

About this, he says: "I must be careful because some upsets my stomach. If you don’t know that you need to go, and after a few accidents, it can lead to huge amounts of anxiety. It is something I worry about constantly and it stops me wanting to leave the house, so I tend to avoid it."

"Being able to go to the loo ‘normally’ would be the priority for me, anything that could take this anxiety away would make so much difference to my life."

Since his injury Wayne has taken a shine to coarse fishing and is getting very involved in the match side of the sport. He has been doing the match side for seven years now and has had some cracking results so far, even winning a few trophies along the way. Besides fishing, Wayne also plays wheelchair basketball for the Thames Valley Kings. He is looking towards the future and has a great passion to help racing charities and enjoys raising money for the Injured Jockeys Fund and Racing Welfare.