Kellady ended up with two titanium plates, one to patch a hole in his skull and the other to mend a fracture on his face.
Two years later, he had another bad fall. This time, he suffered brain trauma and it took months to regain his memory.
“I couldn’t remember my wife. I woke up at the hospital and thought she was a nurse,” he said.
To make his racing weight, he runs and goes for sauna sessions. On top of that, Kellady sometimes starves himself – and this is the hardest part of his job, he said.
“Sometimes we can stop eating for three days or four days, dehydrate our whole body – just to make the body weight to ride the races.”
Despite everything, Kellady goes back to horse racing again and again. He loves horses and the adrenaline of racing, he said.
“I left school at 16 and this is all I know. I’ve dedicated my whole life to horse racing … I love horses and I love my job. This is what keeps me going,” said Kellady, who was born in Malaysia and became a Singapore citizen recently.