WHEN Victorian jockey Luke Nolen lay in a Brisbane hospital in May with a mangled face and a bulging knee, the Caulfield Cup wasn't a consideration. On Saturday, the man who guided El Segundo to victory in last year's Cox Plate is out to win the Caulfield Cup on Riva San, a mare Nolen rates.

"I didn't think I'd be back, no I didn't," Nolen said at Caulfield yesterday, shortly before linking again with Riva San's trainer Peter Moody to claim the fourth race on Al's Best Mate.

Nolen had ventured to the Brisbane winter carnival with Moody intent on making an impact. Moody did with Riva San claiming the Queensland Oaks and Derby in the space of eight days. Nolen was laid up having crashed to the turf from the Bart Cummings-trained Antidotes in a race at Doomben.

"I broke my palate on both sides of my mouth," he recalled. "I fractured the eye socket, the cheek and broke my nose. They wired inside my mouth, and I think there is six plates in my face, but they only opened me up on my right cheek and eyelid."

There are no scars on Nolen's face to remind the jockey of the nightmare fall, and he puts that down the surgeons.

"Getting through the injuries was more or less rest," Nolen said. "It wasn't so much my face but my knee. I thought I did it in but it was given the all-clear a week later. I'm a pretty relaxed little bloke so I didn't mind spending time on the couch."

When it came time to work, Moody put Nolen through the pain barrier. The trainer and jockey have formed a formidable association on Victorian tracks over six years. They joined forces by mistake. Nolen recalls Moody booking him for rides at Sale thinking it was his brother Shaun.