Billy Twomey, who survived an horrendous accident earlier in the year when he was unconscious for 40 minutes after Pikan, his stallion, fell at the Grobbendonk Show in Belgium, showed all his old dash yesterday when he and Fantasia, Karen Nicol's chestnut mare, won the Sylvia Barnes Memorial Cup, the opening international class at the Horse of the Year Show at the NEC in Birmingham.

“I'm making up for lost time,” Twomey, 31, said after relegating Andrew Davies, of Great Britain, on Sir Graditz to second place by 1.01sec in a fast nine-horse jump-off. A former stable jockey of Michael Whitaker, Twomey, Irish-born and based in Cheshire, had recurring bouts of dizziness after the fall and had four months out of the saddle.

Although physically fit, there was psychological scarring. Sue Davies's Pikan, who fractured his pastern in the accident, had to be put down. “I'd pinned my hopes on him,” Twomey said. “He had already shown himself a winner - he was my next big one.”

Short of horses for this week, Nicol offered him the ride on Fantasia, an eight-year-old and Twomey rode her for the first time in Moorsele, Belgium, last week. “To say I'm delighted with her is an understatement,” he said.

Despite the presence of five members of the Whitaker family in the class, including Michael, none reached the top six. Robert Whitaker, the British No1, qualified for the jump-off on Prima Vera only to be eliminated when he missed out the first fence.

Guy Williams had a stylish warm-up for the bigger classes to come this week when he and Torinto Middelstede won the Thomas Bates and Son Classic finishing a fraction of a second ahead of Tim Stockdale.

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