Jockeys Hospitalized After Los Al Spill

Jockeys Flavien Prat and Santiago Gonzalez were transported to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center after both were involved in a spill at Los Alamitos Race Course Sept. 17.

Prat's agent, Derek Lawson, said the 23-year-old rider has a punctured lung and multiple broken vertebrae in his back. He will remain at Long Beach Memorial overnight and his stay could be extended even further.

"He's in a lot of pain," Lawson said.

Gonzalez, according to agent Craig Stephen, has pain in his ankle, but is able to move it and X-rays did not show any bone damage. Gonzalez, 32, also has a bruise on his forehead from where his helmet made contact with Los Alamitos' dirt surface.



Prat and Gonzalez both fell from their mounts in the sixth race at Los Alamitos, when 2-year-old gelding Discreetlyhumorme (ridden by Prat) stumbled and fell approaching the turn in the five-furlong maiden special weight event. Discreetlyhumorme's fall resulted in a collision with Lucky Snow, ridden by Gonzalez, sending his stablemate and the jockey to the dirt, as well.



Both jockeys remained on the ground as emergency medical technicians attended to them, and both were removed from the track on a backboard and loaded into ambulances. The horses, both trained by Mark Glatt, ran off without their riders after the collision and were corralled by outriders.

Stephen criticized the way the accident was handled, calling the procedure "ridiculous." The agent said EMTs only took the injured jockeys outside of Los Alamitos' gate, but then had to wait 20 minutes for paramedics to transport the riders to the hospital.



"What if something (more) serious happened?" Stephen said. "They have to have a better situation."

Brad McKinzie, Los Alamitos' general manager of Thoroughbred racing, responded to the criticism by detailing the process of handling jockey injuries according to protocol set by the Orange County Emergency Medical Services Department.

McKinzie said when a rider goes down in a race, the county treats it as a "trauma event" and paramedics must be called upon to transport injured jockeys to local trauma centers.

"What happened today is how it's supposed to happen," McKinzie said. "We have a paramedic station right across the street, placed there because of its proximity to the racetrack. ... The (paramedics) were waiting for our EMTs. As soon as the EMTs left, the paramedics were on the jockeys.

"While it looks like they were just waiting in the parking lot, that's not what happened. They administered IVs, took vitals, and stabilized them. (That information) was electronically transmitted to the trauma center, where doctors decided where to send them."

McKinzie also said he will schedule a future meeting with jockeys and doctors to explain the process in detail.

"What some people don't understand, and what I didn't understand until we had meetings about it, is that just rushing to an emergency room is not the best medical practice," McKinzie added. "The best medical practice is to have a fully-equipped paramedic transporting them to a trauma center."