There was something slightly perverse about watching the slow-motion video replay of the seven-horse accident at Del Mar Aug. 22 with track stewards Luis Jauregui and David Neusch. It was almost like eavesdropping on the effects of a harrowing flashback. Between them, the two stewards had ridden more than 20,000 horses during their jockey careers. More often than they wanted to count, they'd hit the ground with the velocity of a launched projectile. They knew what they were looking at on that video screen, and how it happened. What they could not figure out is why nobody died.
"Look, there," Jauregui said, pointing at the screen. "The jock in the blue. That's Espinoza. Look how close he came to hitting his head on the rail."
On the screen, there was the seven-pound apprentice Juan Espinoza, a jockey since June of 2019, bounced from the filly Corners Up as she shied right to avoid fallen horses. Espinoza did a mid-air flip that brought his helmeted head to within inches of flush contact with the rail.
Neusch glanced up from his paperwork. Along with Jauregui and fellow steward Grant Baker, a hearing about the accident had just concluded. Jose Valdivia Jr., a 28-year veteran approaching 2,000 wins, was suspended 10 days for crossing over with Katie's Paradise on Sassy Chasey and Diego Herrera, a seven-pound apprentice who rode his first race on Feb. 26, 2021. Herrera was suspended five days for contributing to the accident by placing his filly in tight quarters.
King: Valdivia, Herrera Suspended for Rides in Spill Race
"At the front of a big field, and going into the turn," Neusch said. "That’s the worst place for something like that to happen. You never know which way horses and riders will start to fall."
There were 12 horses in the six-furlong race for $20,000 maiden claimers. Sassy Chasey, a 3-year-old daughter of Coil, had raced twice without placing for trainer Hector Palma, most recently on July 4 at Los Alamitos Race Course. With her forelegs taken out from under her, she crumpled and pitched Herrera through the air.
Kyle Frey and Whiskey Blue were next to fall, then Tiago Pereira and Phoenix Tears slammed into Whiskey Blue. Tyler Baze, who had angled Renegade Princess inward from the outside to prepare for the turn, managed to leap one horse but could not avoid another. As horses scrambled to their feet, Emily Ellingwood fell from a panicked Siena Silk and Cesar Ortega came off Backtoflash just as Espinoza was spinning in front of him.
"I saw it coming for a hundred yards," said Hall of Famer Kent Desormeaux, who was aboard Kind But She Lies. "There was no way that guy was going to make the turn in his position."
Desormeaux was referring to Herrera.
"I moved to scrape paint, because if the horse falls he’s going to fall outward around the turn," Desormeaux continued. "Edwin Maldonado was behind me. He moved out when I moved in, but then he saw it coming and got right back behind me. That jock was still in the air when I went by."
The seven-horse crash was the worst at Del Mar since Aug. 11, 2003, when five went down on the backstretch of a $10,000 claiming race, triggered by the fatal breakdown of a horse ridden by Anthony Lovato. Three horses died that day, while Lovato and Juan Silva suffered fractured vertebrae. Valdivia and Neusch finished 1-2 among the seven who completed the race. The other fallen riders were Mick Ruis, David Flores, and Baze, who fractured bones in his left foot. This time he got lucky.
"Seven horses and seven jocks going down, it just amazes me somebody didn’t get paralyzed or killed," said Baze, a winner of 2,789 races. "It looked like dominoes in front of me. I landed kind of on my shoulder and hind end. I'm bruised up pretty good. The horse kind of fell on me a little bit. I just got lucky I didn't get smashed.
"On the ground, it looked like a bomb went off in the middle of us," Baze said. "When I looked up, the first two I saw were Emily and Kyle. They were at least up on their knees. Looking right, looking left, I saw everybody seemed okay except for one kid. Then he got his head out of the dirt and he was okay. We all kind of scooted under the rail and sat up on the grass course."
Baze, Ellingwood, and Herrera were taken to a nearby hospital for precautionary examinations and released. Pereira joined them later, after walking across the infield to the front of the grandstand with Frey, Espinoza, and Ortega. The Del Mar crowd of about 7,000 showered them with a round of applause.
"I appreciated it, of course," said Frey, who is bearing down on 1,000 winners from less than 5,800 mounts. "They were just happy to see us all come back. But I'd rather save someone out of a burning building to get that kind of applause.
"I tried to hold my horse up, but he didn't jump quite high enough," Frey said. "When you do that you usually get thrown in front of the horse, so I rolled pretty good. I'm 95% sure another horse went right over the top of me just moments after I went down. There were so many people on the ground, I don't remember who I saw. I'm just happy all the horses and riders avoided serious injuries."
Entering the race, Pereira still was on cloud nine after winning the $1 million TVG Pacific Classic (G1) aboard Tripoli for Hronis Racing the day before. That night, the 44-year-old former Brazilian champion received a congratulatory message from his friend and countryman, Jorge Ricardo, the man who has won 13,000 races, and counting.
"So lucky, so lucky," Pereira said of the accident. "First horse went down, second went down, then me and Tyler. My filly ran off and tried to go through a fence, but thank goodness she's okay. Just a few scratches."
Time will tell if and when the seven horses involved in the Great Fall of Aug. 22, 2021, return to racing. Frey, Espinoza, and Pereira were right back in the saddle for the Aug. 26 Del Mar program, while Herrera, Ortega, and Ellingwood had mounts beginning Aug. 27. Baze took some extra time, as a precaution, and passed on weekend action.
There were other pieces of fallout from the accident:
—Maldonado and Mongolian Panther went on to finish first of the five remaining runners, but the stewards were quick to cite a racing rule that allows them to declare a "no contest" when more than half the field is impacted by such an accident. The purse of $25,000 was not distributed.
—Likewise, there were no pari-mutuel payoffs. Bets either were refunded or, in the case of multi-race wagers, tickets including the seventh race were given all 12 entrants. There were grumbles on social media protesting the "no contest" decision—at least from those who either thought Mongolian Panther was a lock no matter what, or factored in a seven-horse crash in their handicapping.
—And while Mongolian Panther will retain her maiden status despite crossing the line first in a race that began with all good intentions, the Aug. 22 event will appear in the running lines of horses that came out of the race, including the seven DNF's, according to a CHRB official.
But nobody died, which is why the race probably will pass quietly into the books accompanied by yet another chorus of whistling past the graveyard. Was there something to learn from the experience? Hopefully, those jockey suspensions will make an impression. It also should be noted, although to what purpose I am not sure, that there were no less than five apprentice riders in the gate for that race, highly unusual for an A-level track. Four of them fell, leaving only Jessica Pyfer to skirt the pileup aboard Big News Coming.
"I always note the 'bug' by a rider's name when I'm doing my homework for a race," said Desormeaux, who, like Frey and Baze, won an Eclipse Award as an apprentice. "I make sure to be aware of where they are, because there's always the chance they won't make decisions like the other journeymen during a race. In what happened the other day, I don't think the kid (Herrera) liked his position. And I guarantee you that rider will never be in that situation again."
