MEDICAL marvel Jeff Lloyd signed off with his 17th career jockeys’ premiership last weekend, but there will be no 18th title.

Lloyd is set to retire in the next few months, bringing down the curtain on one of racing’s great careers as he prepares to become a mentor for his two boys, who are passionate about becoming jockeys themselves.

Lloyd has maintained he would stop riding the moment his boys start and with oldest son Jaden, 16, set to try for a Victorian apprentice licence next month, his time is nigh.

Yet he has no intention to slow down in his final few months.

On the first day of the new season last Wednesday, he rode a treble. He added another winner at Doomben on Saturday, maintaining the same standard punters across Australia have come to expect for many years.

Lloyd turns 57 on September 1.

He won his first Queensland riding premiership in 2016. The next year he became just the second rider in history after Chris Munce to ride a century of winners in a Brisbane metropolitan season, setting a new mark of 137.

Last year, Lloyd bettered Munce’s mark again, finishing with 108 wins.

The fact there have been just two jockeys in more than 100 years to top 100 winners is itself a story for the ages.

It’s even more remarkable when you consider Lloyd achieved the feat well into his 50s.

But when you throw in the fact his record-setting feats have come after he suffered a near fatal stroke in March 2013, it provides an inspiring backstory to one of the most extraordinary sporting stories of all.

The fact Lloyd is riding at all is a remarkable feat, and is something his wife Nicola never even contemplated after the stroke.

“When he said he was going to go back to riding, my words were ‘over my dead body.’ Well, needless to say I’m still alive and he’s still riding,” she said this week.

“But he did promise me that if he got on a horse and he didn’t feel 100 per cent, or that he couldn’t do himself justice … he didn’t want to come back and be half the jockey he had been his whole life. He said ‘I will know if I can do this or not’.

“He said he was doing it to reach great heights, not just to go back to riding. He’s done that.”

Nicola vividly recalls the days after her husband’s diagnosis.

“They told us the next 48 hours were critical and if he had another one he would die,” she said. “I went with him to the doctor and saw the MRIs on the big screen and saw how much of his brain was dead.”

Lloyd himself says the fear is always there that something could happen again.

“It’s always with me. I know it’s not normal,” he said. “When I see the X-rays and the way everything is working inside my head, it’s not normal.

“The doctor said ‘somehow the blood is getting to your brain’ and that is fortunate and shouldn’t be a problem. But whenever I have bad headaches I panic because I think maybe something is happening up there.

“I still lead my life completely the way I would have done, but I am very conscious of the health issues.

“I’ve always been conscious of what I eat and drink, but probably more so now.”

Lloyd has ridden in many parts of the world during his career, which began more than 40 years ago in South Africa, where he won the apprentice title three times, then the senior premiership six times. He travelled the world and was leading rider in Mauritius five times.

After stints in Sydney and Hong Kong, he made the move to Queensland six years ago, deciding the lifestyle was perfect for his young family. He settled on the Gold Coast with Nicola, daughter Tayah, 20, and sons Jaden, 16, and Zac, 14.

Lloyd’s record-breaking seasons have come in his second and third premierships but it’s that breakthrough year in 2015-16, after returning from his stroke, which stands out most for the family.

“That was one of the most special days for us in Jeff’s racing career. For the children to see that after everything was pretty important,” Nicola said.

“Towards the end we started living each meeting with him. The last month I was an absolute wreck. That last meeting when he eventually won was a lovely day.”

Lloyd said for a long time that season he was happy just coasting along in the top few, but some stern words from an old friend provided him the spark he needed.

“I had a chat to (champion international jockey) Felix Coetzee. I was quite happy that I was running third, but he didn’t like my attitude,” Lloyd said.

“He gave me a kick up the backside and said I needed to try and win it. I put the phone down and it triggered in my brain to go a bit harder.”

Go a bit harder for the next two years as it turned out, setting marks that were never thought possible.

“I felt I had done it once but I couldn’t relax on that and I needed to do it again,” Lloyd said. “You want to stay on top while you are there.”

Being a great jockey is so much more than simply turning up on raceday and steering the horses around. The work done behind the scenes is just as important.

Nicola says her husband has “an extraordinary work ethic” and Lloyd credits a lot of his success to what he does in his study at home.

“I do a lot of work after a race meeting trying to find horses that have been unlucky or badly ridden,” he said. “I read a race very well I believe, and I can see things a lot of people don’t see. That’s the challenge I love. Finding horses.

“I do my homework after races trying to find the right horses.

“Once the (barrier) draws are out, then you have to try and work out the best way to ride the horse. It’s a long process for the short time a race takes to be run.

“You can never predict what other jockeys are doing. You try and work out a race as to how you would ride that horse, but the other jockeys might have a different idea. No one gives away what they are thinking.

“Once the barriers open, it’s a new plan. You are open to anything that might change and then it comes to instinct. You get the good jockeys that react quickly to things that go wrong and make the right choices. You can only do that with instinct.”

Lloyd says there’s no tinge of sadness about his career coming to an end — but also no intention to slow down until that final day arrives.

“I just approach it as if I’m riding the whole season, try and ride as many winners as I can,” he said. “I just love racing and I love the challenge. You keep trying to surprise yourself and ride as well as you possibly can.”