Top jockey Anthony Delpech faces a race against time to be fit to be back riding by the end of January after suffering a broken leg at Kenilworth last weekend.

Delpech hopes to be back in time for the G1 J&B Met on January 31 where he is due to ride outstanding filly Majmu for Mike De Kock.

Delpech was injured when his mount Fear Not flipped over in the starting stalls and his leg became jammed in the gate.

The force from the horse broke the leg and Delpech had to be extracted from the situation by the handlers.

The leg is in a plaster cast and he is considering using a decompression chamber to speed up the healing process.

“I have very good people around me and we will work hard to have it healed in time for the Met,” Delpech said.

Delpech has an unbeaten partnership with Majmu, the Australian-bred three-year-old who is being rated as the most exciting filly to race in South Africa since Igugu.

Delpech won the Met on Igugu in 2012.

Meanwhile Bernard Fayd’Herbe, fresh from his triumph on Act Of War in last Saturday’s G1 Cape Guineas at Kenilworth, has landed the plum ride on the favoured Futura in the J & B Met.

Injured Glen Hatt partnered the colt in all his eight races last season, winning the Champions Cup and finishing third in the Vodacom Durban July, but his right wrist is taking longer to come good after an operation in July.

“They told me five months but I am not even near riding a horse yet. I have now told people that I won’t be back during the rest of the Cape season,”Hatt said.

Fayd’Herbe, who won two Mets on Pocket Power, has also been booked for Futura in the G1 L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate, a race he has won four times.

He will also ride Futura this weekend in the Diadem Stakes at Kenilworth for trainer Brett Crawford.

Crawford also runs Met entry De Kock (Corne Orffer) in Saturday’s race. It will be the four-year-old’s first outing since being gelded.

Cape Guineas winner is listed as the fourth favourite for the J & B Met but is long odds to run in the race.

Derek Brugman, racing manager for owner Marcus Jooste, said the intention is to send him overseas in March and race him in England.

“We will run him in the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate, the Met or the Cape Derby. It will be one of those three, but not two of them, and it will be Markus Jooste’s call,” Burgman said.

Jooste, the country’s leading owner for seven straight seasons, is in hospital recovering from an infection that developed after an appendix operation and missed being on course to see his horses win six races at Kenilworth last Saturday.