This is the race I wanted to post about previously. It was a maiden 2 year old race at
Canterbury Park in Minnesota. My dad had one horse in the race, the three horse "Tricky" wearing the white bridle. When loading one horse flipped in the gates and was scratched, so the horses all stepped out and were re-loaded. When they broke, the one horse just slammed on the brakes. The jockey went straight up in the air and then hit the ground and was promptly run over by the two horse. Tricky saw it. You can see his head is up and he swerved right almost all the way across the track. In the second photo, Tricky is on the outside if that shows you how far over he swerved. Consider that these quarter horse races are usually 850 yards and usually run in 18 or 19 seconds. This all happened so fast. The jockey lay crumpled on the track as the horses stormed past the finish line, one horse without his rider. It was pretty horrible to witness. I was shocked I caught it on my camera. My dad later said the jockey was doing "ok." But "ok" in the racing world sometimes means broken bones and guys too tough to even go to the hospital. Almost every backside has some sort of fund helping jockeys to pay medical bills. Tragic that the industry doesn't work harder to give health insurance and quality care to the athletes that risk their lives every time the gate opens.
This is the race I wanted to post about previously. It was a maiden 2 year old race at Canterbury Park in Minnesota. My dad had one horse in the race, the three horse "Tricky" wearing the white bridle. When loading one horse flipped in the gates and was scratched, so the horses all stepped out and were re-loaded. When they broke, the one horse just slammed on the brakes. The jockey went straight up in the air and then hit the ground and was promptly run over by the two horse. Tricky saw it. You can see his head is up and he swerved right almost all the way across the track. In the second photo, Tricky is on the outside if that shows you how far over he swerved. Consider that these quarter horse races are usually 850 yards and usually run in 18 or 19 seconds. This all happened so fast. The jockey lay crumpled on the track as the horses stormed past the finish line, one horse without his rider. It was pretty horrible to witness. I was shocked I caught it on my camera. My dad later said the jockey was doing "ok." But "ok" in the racing world sometimes means broken bones and guys too tough to even go to the hospital. Almost every backside has some sort of fund helping jockeys to pay medical bills. Tragic that the industry doesn't work harder to give health insurance and quality care to the athletes that risk their lives every time the gate opens. 
1 comment:
I hope the jockey mends well. Before reading this blog post, I had not realized that jockeys could be riding without health insurance but of course; they'd have to self-insure and most aren't so well paid. Very sad.
Great photos.
Post a Comment