The 29-year-old achieved a lifetime ambition when a hat-trick of victories at Carlisle took him to 100 winners in a calendar year for the first time last Thursday.
The following day – and with two more winners already bagged at his next meeting in Newcastle – he was unseated beyond the finishing line and landed heavily, dislocating his shoulder.
When he should have been heading home to savour a great run of success that saw him land five wins in seven races, he was instead on his way to hospital.
Now Curtis is recovering at home. He missed out on adding to his impressive tally of successes at Carlisle’s final flat race meeting of 2018 on Wednesday as the likes of Connor Beasley and Callum Rodriguez took advantage of Curtis’ absence.
At last Thursday’s Carlisle meeting, Curtis had notched an early win with Karl Burke’s Praxidice before Collide for Hugo Palmer and, in the last race, Brian Ellison’s Snookered saw him notch his first calendar century of wins.
"It was a brilliant day," Curtis said. "I’ve always had 100 winners in a year as one of my goals and, to tick it off, I was just delighted.
"My agent said I’d do it by Carlisle but I had a couple of contenders that didn’t win, so I thought it was going to be a bit of a stretch to get three there.
"But my wife had a feeling that I would get it at Carlisle, so she brought the baby to come and see, so it was great they were there for it.
"I think Brodi [Curtis’ five-month-old son] was oblivious to the whole thing but it meant a lot they were with me."
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