For a guy who got sat on by a horse Thursday afternoon, Jack Doyle is pretty cheerful.
“I’m not feeling too bad,” the steeplechase jockey said Friday, about 24 hours after falling with Rudyard K in the Grade 1 Lonesome Glory at Belmont Park. “I’m a lot more comfortable than I was yesterday.”
Doyle suffered two small fractures in the front of his pelvis, and also fractured his coccyx (or tailbone). He underwent surgery at North Shore University Hospital Thursday night to stabilize the injuries and will be out for the remainder of the 2016 season. He is in a brace and won’t be able to bear weight on the area for six to eight weeks.
“The doctors weren’t too worried about the two in front because they’ll heal pretty easily,” Doyle said. “But the spine is attached to the coccyx so they had to secure that. I have an external screw, a brace and two screws inside. It probably looks a lot worse than it is.”
With 11 jump wins, Doyle leads all jockeys on the National Steeplechase Association leaderboard for this year and was the leader by earnings last year. He is the regular rider of championship contender Rawnaq, who won two major stakes this spring and is aiming for the $350,000 Grand National at Far Hills, N.J. Oct. 15. Doyle won two Grade 1 stakes last year, and one this year, with Bob Le Beau. The 27-year-old Irishman rode his first American race in 2014 (winning with two of seven mounts), and joined the circuit full time in 2015. Riding primarily for the stable of Elizabeth Voss, the Maryland resident won 14 races and amassed purse earnings of $625,450 in just 59 mounts. This year, he won with 11 of 46 jump mounts (to go with two flat wins) for earnings of $500,200, both tops on the circuit.
Doyle started his jockey career in the 2005-06 season in England and Ireland. He’s won 186 English races and another 20 in Ireland, and was the stable rider for trainer Emma Lavelle for five seasons.
Thursday, Rudyard K made most of the early running and was challenged on the final run up the backstretch by Charminster. They matched strides over the first two fences in the straightaway (the eighth and ninth jumps of the race) and approached the third on relatively even terms. Up by a half-length coming to the race’s final fence, Charminster took off and Rudyard K tried to match the jump only to hit the top and flip. Doyle was initially thrown clear, but Rudyard K landed on the jockey’s hip before getting up and galloping off.
“Everyone had come by me and I looked and saw him coming straight down on top of me,” said Doyle, who broke his leg in a fall in 2010. “It’s not his fault, but that’s when the damage happened. I knew straightaway my hip or something was broken.”
Doyle, whose sister Shannie lives in Manhattan and was at the races Thursday, said North Shore does not discharge patients over the weekend, so he will be at the hospital until at least Monday.
“They said we’d see,” he said. “I might have to go to a rehab for a bit up here or maybe back down in Maryland. It will be just step-by-step. I’m pretty comfortable today. I haven’t really had any pain and I’m on very little painkillers.
“It’s all a bit annoying but that happens in this game, unfortunately.”
Rudyard K was not seriously injured in the fall and was back with trainer Todd Wyatt in Maryland Thursday night.
