Injured Jockey Nakatani Travels Long Road to Recovery

Corey Nakatani isn't going through a typical jockey comeback story. Too much has happened, and too much needs to happen before he ever gets back in the saddle again.

The list of injuries the 48-year-old rider sustained from an incident on the Del Mar turf Aug. 4 reads coldly clinical—compression fractures of the T9 and T10 vertebrae, herniated discs in the C5, C6, and C7 vertebrae, and spinal cord compression and contusion.

But the reality of the journey—filled with pain, unease, and the unknown—is a far more distressing picture.

Nakatani remembers the summer Saturday at Del Mar well enough because it started with a bang—quite literally.

As he drove to San Luis Rey Training Center from Del Mar in the early morning darkness to work graded stakes winner Gas Station Sushi for trainer Richard Baltas, he rammed a loose wheel on the freeway that had been dislodged from a semitrailer.  

The impact caused so much damage it totaled the car, and Nakatani's son and agent, Matt Nakatani, had to pick up the rider from the side of the road to get him the rest of the way to San Luis Rey.

That collision would pale in comparison to the one later in the day, when the jockey rode Irish Spring in the final race at Del Mar.

The run through the final turn on the turf course aboard the Spring At Last colt was like so many others for the 10-time Breeders' Cup winner known best as a magician on the grass, and maybe the most accomplished modern jockey not in the Hall of Fame. In a stalking position, he saved ground, cut the corner, and prepared for the stretch run, but he may not have had much horse left, because Aussie Fox passed the colt on the outside at the top of the lane.

As Aussie Fox and apprentice jockey Assael Espinoza passed Irish Spring, however, he wasn't clear of his rival and came into Irish Spring's path. Irish Spring clipped Aussie Fox's heels and went down in one of the worst spots possible—right in front of another horse.

"It just happened so fast," Corey said as he stood in the sun on the Santa Anita Park apron Jan. 4, five months after the incident, calling out to riders as they passed by during morning training. "I was sitting in the pocket and was cutting the corner. I peeked to my left to make sure no one was there and I started to go. I was in third at the time. All the sudden, I caught something out of my right eye and I just yelled. That's all I remember. That's it."

Bitter Ring Home and Geovanni Franco fell over Irish Spring and Corey, and the seaside racetrack went still.

"That was the scariest thing I've ever seen," Matt said a day after the race. "I mean, it's my dad out there, and watching it live, I just took off down there—nobody's telling you anything. I just ran onto the turf course."

After the initial confusion and adrenaline began to wane, Corey knew there was a serious problem.

"Once I had my bearings, I knew something was wrong," Corey said. "There was something wrong with my left side. I couldn't move it. I just tried to stay still because I didn't want to be completely paralyzed."

Corey estimates about 45 minutes later he started to get feeling back. Both Corey and Franco were transported to the hospital. Franco had a bone bruise in his foot and was back working horses at Del Mar the next day. Corey wasn't so lucky, and Espinoza was suspended 10 days for the incident, a point the veteran rider still doesn't look back kindly on. 

"It's mind-boggling to me," Corey said of the length of the suspension—too short in his opinion—which Espinoza appealed but ultimately had to serve. "If you cause an accident to that degree … I didn't die, but I almost did."

An observer of Southern California horse racing with a long memory might take issue with that last comment.

Corey had a reputation for careless riding in the past and has been suspended for 30 days multiple times for his actions on the track, but the difference was accusations of intent.

The most high-profile case came in 1997, when Corey pushed apprentice Ryan Barber off his mount during the gallop out after an Aug. 3 race at Del Mar—almost 21 years to the day before Corey's most recent fall. Although Barber is still riding, he's never come close to the success he had in 1997.

Corey later admitted to the Los Angeles Times' Bob Mieszerski that he "lost it."

"I didn't want him to fall off," he told Mieszerski in 1997. "I'm sorry for what happened. I lost it. A lot of things have been bothering me, and my back has been hurting … and I do need to get professional help."

When considering why Corey isn't in the Hall of Fame, his reputation regarding his riding incidents and what some consider a prickly personality are often cited, along with his lack of victories in Triple Crown races. Based on purse earnings, Corey ranks 12th all-time. Every jockey ahead of him on that list is in the Hall of Fame, plus three of the four directly behind him—Garrett Gomez, Russell Baze, and Victor Espinoza—have all been enshrined.

"I'm on the ballot. Everybody knows my numbers," the 119-time grade 1 winner said. "Put me on a back of a horse and anybody in the jocks' room will tell you—I don't like losing. Everybody makes mistakes, and when I've made mistakes, I've tried to learn from them, but I don't think anybody who has done something wrong needs to be chastised the rest of their life for it.

"The perception on the racetrack is that I'm going to do everything I can to beat you, and that's the way it should be."

The initial diagnosis for Corey from the emergency-room doctor the night of the 2018 accident was that he had a fracture in his spine, along with the other issues with his discs and spinal cord, so he was kept overnight at the hospital.

The next morning, a specialist re-examined the tests and X-rays and gave a different opinion.

"The spinal cord specialist came in and said, 'The good news is there's no fracture,'" Matt remembered. "'But the bad news is the herniated discs in the neck require surgery.'"

With conflicting opinions, Matt and Corey drove north to Los Angeles County to get a third opinion.

"The third doctor in L.A. saw everything, and we started talking about surgery," Matt said.

Several weeks later, Corey went under the knife. The first attempt to repair the four discs pressing against his spinal cord was aborted because of complications.

"They hooked him up and his left side went numb, so that was it," Matt said.

Three days later, doctors tried again. They went through his throat to get to his spine, then came back through the back of his neck a day later to complete the procedure. The surgery went well enough, but the worst was ahead.

"I had an infection—two bacteria—and I'll tell you what, that was as bad as it got," Corey said. "I coulda been six feet under at that point. I was taking handfuls of drugs. Nothing fazed it. I'd push on my neck and it'd squirt out my neck.

"I was like, 'There's something wrong.' I was in so much pain."

Matt didn't grasp just how much pain his father was in until they drove to the hospital in early November.

"Driving the car, we'd go over a little bump—and we were going like 40 (mph)—or any type of turn, he'd yell," Matt said.

Corey went in and out of the hospital four times in a span of about two weeks, and there was another surgery to clean out the infection.

"You coulda checked me out. If I had a gun, I probably woulda ended it," Corey said. "It was that bad. I just wanted to be six feet underground with that infection. Four oxy, eight gabapentin—I was taking so much crap—and it didn't faze it."

For a while, Matt didn't work—he now represents jockeys Angel Cruz and Andrea Atzeni—because someone needed to help his dad do even the simplest things.

"It was just needing time. When they cut those muscles, you can't move," Corey said. "I could barely pick my head up. I couldn't even get out of bed. I'd have to roll or have somebody pick (me) up."

Eventually, things started to get better, and Corey turned a corner around Christmas. He's now going through biweekly physical therapy sessions and has made it out to the track a few times. Every day starts with his stiff neck. His muscles loosen up after a while, but fatigue sets in as the day progresses. He still can't fully rotate his neck, and he admits to getting dizzy on occasion when he bends down.

"By the end of the day, the muscles in my neck are getting tired. Then I just sit down, take some Advil, and relax," Corey said. "If I do a little too much, I'll get a zinger, and it'll seize up and get a spasm.

"It'll never be what it once was, but I'll be able to at least live life and be normal. But when they tell you you can't do something, it makes you try to prove them wrong."

Five or 10 years ago, there likely wouldn't even be a question. Corey would be definitive and defiant that he'd get back in the saddle. It's his nature.

But at 48, and knowing the challenges already experienced and ahead, the hypercompetitive rider can't promise he'll ever make it back.

"I don't look at it as a challenge. It's a health issue," Corey said. "I don't put a timeline on it. If I'm able to do it, I'll do it. I'm not going to do it if I can't. And if I can't do it, I'll move in a different direction in the sport. Whether it's training horses or doing TVG, I'm going to promote horse racing in any way I can, because I love it."

Matt tells a little bit of a different story. He has said getting back to riding comes up often in conversation with his father, but he has his own concerns about Corey getting back on horses.

"I try to tell him, 'Do you know what can happen the next time? Have you thought about that?'" Matt said. "'You have other things to think about. You have family to think about.' But if he's 100% and the doctors say he's ready to come back, he's going to come back because he's such a competitor.

"That first race back is going to be nervous—well, I'll be nervous. My dad is different."