The Kootingal-based harness racing trainer-driver returned to the track late last year after being left busted up following a horror race fall early that year.

"It was sort of like starting from scratch again," she said. "I only had one horse up and racing when I first started back driving and training. It took a while to get a few extra drives."

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The 38-year-old now has four horses "in the barn", with "three babies to come in the next couple of weeks".

Ahead of Thursday afternoon's Tamworth Paceway meeting, Rushbrook has also spoken about the mental hurdle she faced when she resumed driving.

There was "certainly no worries with the fear", the industry veteran stressed.

No, the issue was getting her "driving head back on". "You know, the tactical side of it," she said.

"And it took me a while to drive my first winner back. I think I was trying a little bit too hard; trying to prove to myself that I was back and I was right."

That overzealousness was, in large part, due to what she described as the need to prove to the industry that she had put behind her the 2020 Inverell Cup crash that sent her flying through the air and left her with a badly broken leg, a fractured vertebrae, seven cracked ribs and a punctured lung.

It was her first race fall.

Moonbi reinswoman Elly Chapple was also badly injured in the crash, with both drivers airlifted to Lismore Hospital for surgery.

Rushbrook's surgeon told her she would be sidelined for 12 months.

She said: "It's really hard when you first come back from an injury: nobody wants to put you back on until they know that you're driving well again.

"And, also being out for seven months, someone else has been driving all the horses I was driving previously."

A lifeline for Rushbrook was Cessnock trainer Stacie Elliott, who, like Rushbrook, will be in action at Tamworth on Thursday.

"She stuck by me and gave me drives."

Rushbrook will have two horses at the Paceway on Thursday: Jackeroo Shannon in race three and Gotta Rush in race eight.

She will drive both horses, and will drive Savannahs Boy (Rob Durrant) in race two.

"We've drawn terribly," she said of Jackeroo Shannon, a seven-year-old gelding with one win from 18 starts this season, and Gotta Rush, who is coming off a last-start win, at Tamworth.

"It's much of a muchness with those two at the moment," she added, in reference to which horse she fancied the most on Thursday.

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