Tulsa World: Jockey dies at Blue Ribbon Downs

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Jockey dies at Blue Ribbon Downs

By RICHARD LINIHAN World Correspondent
Published: 10/18/2009 2:01 PM
Last Modified: 10/18/2009 8:28 PM

SALLISAW — A jockey riding in a horse race at Blue Ribbon Downs died Sunday after he fell from the horse.

Mark Pace, 58, of Texas, died Sunday after a spill in the first race at noon at Blue Ribbon Downs in Sallisaw.

When changes were announced prior to the start of the races, Pace was named to ride a horse that jockey Mike Bishop was originally schedule to ride, 3-year-old filly Reep What You Sow, the No. 2 horse in the race.

As first reported Sunday on tulsaworld.com, during the 5½-furlong race, the filly ran into the rail and Pace fell. An ambulance transported Pace to Sequoyah County Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The track announcer, Jesse Ullery, said Pace was already dead on the track before being taken to the hospital.

Pace had not ridden in a race at Blue Ribbon Downs this year, according to Blue Ribbon Downs statistics. A second race was run after the incident, but the rest of the races for the day were canceled after news spread of Pace’s death.

“I feel sorry for Mark, it’s a dangerous job,” said Mike Bishop, 46, of Vain whom Pace replaced in Sunday’s event after he was coincidently thrown from his horse on Saturday. “That’s why I pulled off my mount, because my horse broke its leg,” Bishop said. “He (Mark) took my mounts.”

Bishop said, “I had just met Mark, he came out of retirement.”

“I had just met him yesterday,” fellow jockey Cody Smith said of Pace. “I was watching the replay of the race, and it just looked like the horse was a little green and spooked into the rail. When it did, Mark fell and hit his head and the back of his neck (on the rail).”

Pace, a native Texan, had recently returned to riding after being away for an extended period.

“He showed up just recently at Blue Ribbon Downs,” said retired jockey Rodger Smith, who is Cody Smith’s father. “He didn’t have any tack (riding equipment), and I went and picked up a helmet for him. I met him years ago in Texas when we were both riding down there, and you couldn’t have met a nicer fellow, just an outstanding individual.”

“It’s just a bad deal,” Rodger Smith said. I can remember a couple of jockeys died in the 1980s; one was a 16-year-old (Kevin Lindsey) in a schooling race.”

Lindsey’s horse started bucking out of the gate at Blue Ribbon Downs, and about halfway through the race he was thrown to the track. The horse stepped on Lindsey’s chest, and he did not survive.

According to a four-year study by the Anne Waller of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of North Carolina, “for every 1,000 jockeys you have riding, over 600 will have medically treated injuries.” She also told the New York Times that almost 20 percent of those injuries were serious head or neck injuries.

The study showed 6,545 injuries to jockeys from 1993 to 1996. Waller’s report also said that between the years 1950 to 1987, there were more than 100 jockeys who were killed in the United States.

According to the Jockeys’ Guild, which has been keeping track of jockey deaths on the racetrack, more than 140 have lost their lives on the track since 1940.

G.R. Carter, Oklahoma’s top quarter horse jockey and eight-time top rider in the country, has seen his share of tragedy on the racetrack.

“You know, I’ve ridden in three races in which guys have been killed,” he said. “Kevin in that schooling race at Blue Ribbon in 1986, Lute Proctor died in 1991 in an 870-yard race at Bay Meadows (northern California), and Juan Campos was killed in 2008 in Albuquerque.

“I rode a horse in all those races. You know that every time you get a leg up, you take the risk of being killed or terminally disabled. These guys give their lives doing what they love best, but that doesn’t make it any easier for the ones who ride with these guys.”

Rodger Smith, who broke his back before retiring about three years ago while in his 40s, shared that sentiment.

“I told Cody and all my friends that if I ever got killed in a riding accident to not stop riding on my account,” he said. “Unfortunately this is just a part of the game.”

Blue Ribbon Downs General Manager Blaine Storey said the track would release a statement after notifying Pace’s family.

“We canceled the rest of the races (Sunday) to respect our lost comrade,” Storey said. “We had a futurity final that we didn’t get to run, but we will look at the rest of the schedule for the year and decide where to put that later.”

Blue Ribbon Downs’ next scheduled race day is Saturday.

The Jockeys’ Guild had no information on Pace on its Web site. By RICHARD LINIHAN World Correspondent

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Reader comments for this story have been moved to the most updated version of the story, now under the headline "Racing jockey dies after a spill," which was published on 10/19/2009. So far, 24 comments have been made.