Golf writers have it easy. Their professional athletes rarely suffer anything worse than a sprained wrist lifting a trophy or a tweaked back sustained while bulking up on a high-end Universal weight machine. Otherwise, it's their feelings that get hurt most of the time because no one really understands just how hard their game is and what sacrifices they endure.
The damage sustained by Tiger Woods in his one-car rollover in West Los Angeles on the morning of Feb. 23 hits home with those of us who have spent time in emergency rooms after jockeys have crashed and burned in any number of horrifying accidents through the years. The ramifications are no less severe—Woods is facing the end of a career already threatened because of his latest back surgery—but he did not ruin his right leg on the job. What happened to him could have happened to anyone driving too fast on a downhill curve.
On the day after the Woods crash, at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Scott Stevens was sitting on the 3-year-old Grey Point waiting for the start of a 7 1/2-furlong maiden race on the turf. The gates opened as advertised, then all heck broke loose, as the horse from the outside angled inward and there was, as Scott told his brother Gary Stevens, "Five horses in a spot with room for only two." In such situations, something bad always happens. Stevens was knocked halfway off his horse, tried to regain his seat, then hit the ground hard enough to fracture the second cervical disc of his spine. That's in the neck.
Stevens, who still has use of his extremities, also banged up his foot, but it's his neck that had local emergency room doctors concerned. That and the fact Stevens tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after arriving in the hospital after a series of clean tests had kept him in business through the pandemic, limited as it was in opportunities. Grey Point was mount number 33,447 for Stevens, and, as the 2-to-1 second choice, he could have been win number 5,050 for the jockey who turned 60 in October.
There is not enough room on the page to detail the many racing injuries from which Stevens has returned to competition over the four-plus decades of his career. He is a medical marvel, rivaled only by his brother. Scott also is universally respected as an advocate of his fellow riders, active in the Jockeys' Guild, and a mentor to young people who are driven to go where he has been.
The fact that Stevens texted a thumbs up and the message "I am going to be ok" from the hospital on Friday was welcome news. As described by his brother, the injury could have been much worse.
"He said he violated the golden rule," Gary said. "'Never try to climb back on one of those things you're already halfway off of.'"
Chris McCarron, a retired Hall of Famer like Gary Stevens, made a point of putting the crash factor out there for the students of the North American Racing Academy he helped establish in Lexington.
"At the orientation before classes started, when I invited parents to participate, I showed them films of accidents," McCarron said. "I said this is what could be, and it's not a question of if you're going to get hurt. It's a matter of when, and to what degree."
Not that they were as serious as those sustained by Woods, but McCarron's leg fractures in his 30s were bad enough to get him thinking about the end of his career. He fractured his left femur in four places in a 1986 accident at Santa Anita Park when a falling Laffit Pincay landed helmet first on McCarron's thigh. Then he fractured that same femur again in May of 1990 and cracked the fibula of the right leg in a crash at Hollywood Park.
"I tried to instill in them the concern the students should have in order to go out there and be as safe as possible," McCarron said. "I tried to tell them that fear is merely an emotion through which we exercise caution. That's putting it mildly.
"There were times I regretted saying those things, because it did cause a lot of apprehension in some of those students," McCarron added. "I did have several students over the years who never got over being scared. But it was probably better that I explained to them, and their parents, what I would be exposing them to."
One North American Racing Academy graduate, Michael Straight, was left paralyzed from the waist down from a spill at Arlington International Racecourse in 2009.
This time around, Scott Stevens was faced with the kind of spinal column injury that comes with decisions.
"Scott had a choice of fusing the C1, 2, and 3 vertebrae," Gary Stevens said. "He was told that would reduce his range of motion by 30%. He's decided to go without the surgery and wear a body cast for 13 weeks while the fracture heals on its own. He will be very restricted in his movements—even throwing his dog a Frisbee is a no-no—but he would then be able to start physical therapy and have full range of motion again."
It is hard to go more than a week without news of a serious jockey injury, followed by an inspiring comeback. Mike Luzzi continues to compete in New York after a series of broken bones have interrupted a career that began with an Eclipse Award as an apprentice. Rajiv Maragh and his younger cousin Romero have their own family history of miracle comebacks. In the past few years, such marquee riders as John Velazquez, Javier Castellano, William Buick, Patrick Husbands, Drayden Van Dyke, Emma-Jayne Wilson, and Paco Lopez have lost valuable time to workplace injuries. Six months from now, you can almost hear a recovering Scott Stevens talk about how good he feels and how he's hoping to ride the 2022 season at Turf Paradise.
"Not this time," Gary said. "This is the first time after he was hurt he said that's it. He does want to be able to get on horseback again at some point, if only to check out a horse someone might want to buy.
"My brother is the toughest guy I've ever known. But this needs to be the last time we say, 'It could have been worse.'"
