RUSSELL OUT THE REMAINDER OF THE YEAR WITH BROKEN RIBS AND PUNCTURED LUNG
LAUREL, MD. 11-03-10---When live racing wrapped up last Saturday, it appeared Sheldon Russell had escaped serious injury after the 23-year-old rider was involved in a racing mishap earlier that afternoon. Unfortunately, Laurel Park’s second leading rider suffered eight broken ribs with three of them puncturing his lungs. The popular rider will miss the final seven weeks of the fall meeting, which ends Dec. 18.
Russell had surgery late Saturday night at Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in downtown Baltimore and is now home resting comfortably.
“The bottom ones punctured the lung and a hole seeped into the lung causing me to have trouble breathing,” said Russell. “But we are doing well. They took good care of me at Shock Trauma.”
Russell was aboard Like A Cat in Saturday’s second race, who had to swerve to miss a fallen horse and sent his rider tumbling to the ground. Mean Louie Q, with Grant Whitacre, had angled to the rail and broke down as the horses rounded the far turn.
“Grant’s horse was not even near me but when he broke down he fell right in front of us,” added Russell, who won a career-best 106 races this year.
Russell’s promising career has been marred by injury since he was an apprentice rider. In October 2007, he fractured vertebrae during a spill and missed four months. A month into his comeback, in March 2008, he fractured vertebrae and suffered a broken wrist in a spill, missing another four months.
“My initial thought when I knew I couldn’t get up was it was my back but by the time I got into the ambulance the sharp pains were in the rib area,” said Russell, who captured the 2008 fall riding title and trailed Forest Boyce by three wins when the injury occurred. “We were doing well and it looked like it was going to be a tight race for the leading rider at the meet.”
“We’ll concentrate on getting back January 1st,” said Marty Leonard, Russell’s agent. “and work relentlessly to return to the top of the standings.”
-mjc-
PHOTO CREDIT-Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club
Mike Gathagan
Vice President-Communications
Maryland Jockey Club
410-578-4461 (Pimlico)
301-470-5461 (Laurel Park)
240-876-7403 (Mobile)
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