Sibille Returns After Five-Month Absence

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Veteran Arlington Park jockey Ray Sibille, who joined the 4,000-win club three years ago, has successfully returned to the saddle from a compressed vertebrae injury that sidelined him from Jan. 2 until the closing days of the Hawthorne meeting.

Sibille won on the first day of racing at Arlington Park astride Darley Stud Management Inc.'s Absent Friend for trainer Eoin Harty.

"That's going to be a very nice horse," said Sibille of Absent Friend, a 3-year-old son of Runaway Groom out of a Fit to Fight mare. "I sure am glad that when I was riding in California, and Eoin Harty was an assistant trainer, that I was always nice to him."

Sibille rode a second Arlington Park winner on Sunday when he piloted Tom Tomillo Jr.'s Aller Baby to a score in the second race of the day.

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