Former Grade 1-Winning Jockey Julio Pezua Remains Hospitalized After Training Incident At Belmont
Julio Pezua
Exercise rider and former jockey Julio Pezua, 65, remains hospitalized after a spill during morning training at Belmont Park on April 2, according to the Daily Racing Form. Pezua underwent surgery to repair two fractured vertebrae in his neck, and is still recovering at Winthrop Hospital.
The incident occurred aboard Linda Rice trainee Five Alarm Robin, a 6-year-old mare who collapsed and fell after a workout, having suffered a suspected fatal cardiovascular event.
Rice told DRF that Pezua had feeling in his arms, though "they weren't that mobile," and that his legs were mobile.
Recommended for You
A GoFundMe page has been established by owner Aron Yagoda to help pay for Pezua's medical bills.
As a jockey, Pezua, 65, was a multiple graded stakes winning rider, who won 1,316 races, including Grade 1 scores at Belmont Park with Dixie Brass in the 1992 Metropolitan Handicap and aboard Silver Voice in the 1987 Manhattan.
Yagoda said that as a student in the 1980s at the University of Miami, he began following the career of Pezua, then riding in South Florida. Yagoda said that since setting up the GoFundMe page on Monday that numerous donations have already come in, demonstrating how the horse racing community comes together in times of need.
“You have so much competition, and yet when somebody gets injured, people look out for one another,” said Yagoda, a board member of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association (NYTHA). “It says a lot about the people in our sport.”
Read more at the Daily Racing Form.
