The 54-year-old Yorkshireman was taken to hospital after falling from Peppermill at an event in Assen on Saturday.

 

The pair were competing in a 1.45 metre two-phase, but Peppermill jumped Whitaker off over a fence in the first phase.

 

He has a badly broken and dislocated ankle which required an operation.

 

Peppermill, a 12-year-old stallion, had only just returned to action after five months out because of injury and Assen was his international comeback.

 

Whitaker said: "Peppermill's fine.

 

"He's fit but I'm lame."

 

Whitaker was the oldest person selected to represent Britain at last year's Olympics when he was picked at the age of 53 for what would have been his fifth appearance in the Games of a career that stretched back to Los Angeles in 1984 when he won a silver medal in the team competition.

 

But he was forced to withdraw on the morning of the event in Hong Kong when Peppermill suffered an injury.

 

Whitaker's brother, Michael, was also forced out because of an injury to his horse Portofino.

 

Michael Whitaker is now facing the threat of missing the London 2012 Olympics after his stallion Tackeray tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance at the Nations Cup in La Baule, France, on May 14, and he was given a four-month ban.

 

Under the rules of the British Olympic Association, any competitor has been suspended for a doping-related offence is banned from ever representing the country again in the Games, although there is a right of appeal.