NEWS
Desormeaux out Saturday with possible neck fracture
Posted: Saturday, September 04, 2010 3:17 PM
by Phil Janack
Racing Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux took off his five scheduled mounts at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday with a possible neck fracture, the result of a spill in Friday’s second race.
Desormeaux’s jockey agent, Mike Sellitto, said Saturday that the 40-year-old rider was waiting to hear back from a specialist at Albany Medical Center Hospital in Albany, New York, to confirm what the jockey posted on his personal Facebook page as a broken C-7 vertebra.
CT scans done at Saratoga Hospital in Saratoga Springs on Friday revealed the break, and the film was sent to Albany Medical Center Hospital for further evaluation. Desormeaux was fitted with a neck brace and released
“We don’t really know yet, but it looks like he has a broken vertebrae,” Sellitto said. “We’re waiting to make it official until a doctor tells us that for sure. There’s a little question that it may be an old break. We’re waiting to find out. He wanted to ride today.”
Desormeaux was hurt when his mount, second-time starter Forest Whip, collapsed and died from an apparent heart attack in the stretch of the second race.
Phil Janack is a Saratoga-based Thoroughbred Times correspondent
