Chantal Sutherland says she will be “gun-shy” about riding at Gulfstream Park in future unless the track finds a solution to the wandering geese which she says were to blame for a nasty injury that could require a three-month recovery period.
The hugely popular jockey had steered Haruki to finish fourth in the English Channel Stakes, a black-type turf race on May 6 at the Florida track, when they were confronted by two birds crossing the course from the infield lake.
What They’re Thinking feature with Chantal Sutherland
Her horse spooked and Sutherland was thrown off, landing with such impact that she broke the humerus bone clean off her shoulder. Colleague Edgar Perez, who rode the winner Swan Lake, was also lucky to escape injury after being thrown in the freak incident.
“It was the last race and my horse was a second-time starter,” said Sutherland. “My horse was galloping out strong and I was in front of everybody.
“Two geese were crossing the track and they started flapping their wings when they saw the horse. I tried to grab the horse to stop him but when the horse saw them he put the brakes on and ducked to the right.
“I put my arm out to break my fall and when I landed I felt like I was okay. I saw other horses coming and their jockeys were yelling at me to get out of the way.
“I didn’t want to get trampled so I ran underneath the rail and when I did that I felt like my shoulder was sore, like I’d broken my collarbone.
“But when I looked down at my arm, it wasn’t attached. It was really far away from my body. It was surreal; I grabbed my arm and knew this wasn’t good.”
Although an ambulance arrived, Sutherland had to negotiate a route to it from where she had fallen. “I had to walk across the turf course, underneath the rail, across the Tapeta course and underneath the rail and then down a hill and underneath the rail to the dirt course,” she said. “It was so painful I shimmied on my bum!
“The ambulance was going to take me to the jocks’ room but I knew I needed to go to hospital. They had to cut my silks off in the ambulance. I couldn’t move my arm at all, and with all the speed bumps the ambulance had to go over, that was painful too.”
The 47-year-old was taken to hospital where she underwent surgery to have the humerus bone reattached and a plate inserted. She has now returned home to begin what could be a three-month recovery.
“I had the surgery on Monday and the night after that was really rough for me,” the rider said. “Tuesday was a little better but now I’ve stopped taking the medication and things have improved hugely from where I was.”
Sutherland, who has ridden more than 1,200 winners, would have started riding at the Monmouth Park meet, which opened on Saturday, had she not been injured. She still hopes to be involved in New Jersey from mid-July onwards provided her recovery goes to plan while also hoping Gulfstream management will address the issue of the geese.
“It was on the gallop-out so nobody really saw it,” she said. “It’s one of those things that shouldn’t happen. Getting hurt like this is such a bummer – I hope the track can fix it.
“The geese go up to the pond and there is a trainer that feeds them,” she went on. “Everyone on the backside knows about it. They go at the same time every day to cross the track.
“I’m sure there could be a solution to stop them crossing the track. Should we feed them at the pond so they don’t cross the track? Should we relocate the geese? Should they hire someone during racing hours to make sure it doesn’t happen?
“I think it would be a lot cheaper than the hospital bill that they are going to have to pay with insurance. Somebody could get killed – it’s pretty dangerous. I’m going to be gun-shy to ride at Gulfstream now if the geese aren’t removed. It happened so fast there was nothing I could do.”
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