Rene Douglas wasn’t the best jockey around. He was not Eddie Arcaro, or Bill Shoemaker or Chris McCarron or Gary Stevens.

But he was good. Quite good. Good enough to have won more than 3,500 races, including the 1998 Belmont Stakes and the Juvenile Fillies race at the 2006 Breeders’ Cup.

Then came a horrific accident (look for the yellow cap in the turn for home, at the 1:30 mark) at Arlington Park in 2009, one in which the horse he was riding flipped twice and landed atop him. Douglas was paralyzed below the waist.

For nearly four years, he never returned to the track. It was too hard. Too difficult. He became deeply depressed during a long stay in the hospital, and he wanted nothing to do with the sport.

And now, here in the UAE, he has ended his self-imposed exile, returning to the track at Meydan Racecourse, for the Dubai World Cup, as a part owner of Private Zone, a talented but erratic horse owned by a Chicago syndicate.

You know when a story is so good you read it, even though you are not necessarily interested in the subject matter?

This story, by Geoffrey Riddle for The National, is one of those stories.

Douglas’s friends in Chicago, where the native of Panama was based for most of his career, got him to promise that he would return to the track for the first time if Private Zone were invited to Dubai for the World Cup, the most lucrative card in world racing.

Riddle spoke with him on Wednesday, a day before the rest of the world got to him, and he tells the story simply and effectively.

Douglas speaks of the accident, and the haunting nature of the fallen horse’s name: Born To Be.

He says Born To Be saved his life, because the horse also was paralyzed during the accident. Douglas believes had Born To Be been able to get up, he the jockey, would have died as the horse thrashed to her feet.

It is not clear if Douglas’s return to the track is permanent. Will he buy into other horses? Will he consider being a trainer?

Read the story to the end. There is the admission that plenty of tears will be shed on Saturday, when Private Zone races in the $2 million Golden Shaheen race, one of the nine races in Dubai. Douglas’s insights into the horse. And an uplifting sentiment at the end.

It is a fine piece of journalism, and I recommend it heartily.