Opening day at Del Mar, Wednesday, July 22, featured the highs and the lows of racing on one card. First the highs: record attendance which was an all-time Del Mar record with 44,907 in the house. Beautiful weather; beautiful track; beautiful card...What could go wrong?
Lots. In the third race, 8 year old gelding Mi Rey, stumbled, veered to the right and lost his rider, Rafael Bejarano. Bejarano was then trampled by the horse behind him and suffered multiple facial fractures. The horse, Mi Rey, pictured above, fractured his ankle (reminiscent of Barbaro's fracture although it was a front ankle not a rear one) and was euthanized on the track.
The events happened early in the stretch run of the six furlong race, in plain view of many of those 44,000 plus spectators. Need I say more?
"It was an emotional rollercoaster," concluded Del Mar Turf Club President and CEO Joe Harper. "You hate to see something like that happen any time, but especially when you have a crowd that includes so many people who may come to the races only once a year."
The jockey is expected to recover, though he will face multiple surgeries to put his face back together again. Not so many of those "once a year" fans who may never come back again.
No finger pointing or blaming--just the continual story of what the sport entails. Nobody likes to see it happen or be reminded of the danger inherent in every race, but there it is, front and center when you least expect it. Trainer Vladimir Cerin put it into whatever perspective there is on the situation with this remark: 'Things just happen. Thousands of people die in car accidents every year in this country and not all of them from people drinking. This is an exciting sport, but sometimes things just happen. And people get hurt as well as horses."
Just a reminder of everything the sport is racing for and against every single day.
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