This year’s Personal Ensign winner recovering after terrible spill in KY
A-list jockey Brian Hernandez Jr., who piloted Thorpedo Anna to victory on Travers Day, is in the hospital until further notice.
A-list jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. is in the hospital after a major spill at Churchill Downs on Sunday, recovering from liver surgery and nursing seven broken ribs and a punctured lung.
The Kentucky-based jockey, 39, triumphed at the Kentucky Derby last year aboard Mystik Dan, and made it to Saratoga for Travers Day this year, to ride Thorpedo Anna to victory in the Personal Ensign Stakes. Both horses are running in big races (Goldencents and Spinster, respectively) in the coming weeks, which Hernandez will have to forgo as he heals. The Breeders Cup also falls in that time window.
“The doctors are saying between six and eight weeks,” he told Thoroughbred Daily News in an article posted Monday, September 22. He was having surgery on his ribs today, he told the outlet.
The accident happened in Race 3 on Sunday, with Hernandez aboard Sgt. Garcia, who threw him to the track near the backstretch after injuring a front leg. They were so far in the back of the pack that the announcer didn’t even see it and it was just barely caught on camera. Sgt. Garcia was euthanized.
“Any time you're dealing with a profession where an ambulance follows you around the track proves the point that it's a pretty dangerous job,” Hernandez told TDN. “Riding-wise you know that going into it, so you have to keep that in the back of your mind. At the same time yesterday sitting there in the back of the ambulance, at one point you're saying I don't ever want to do this again. The next second, you're thinking 'When can I come back?’”