Jockey Grant Whitacre will miss the entire spring meet at Pimlico Race Course after he cracked the T6 vertebra in his back and broke his nose during a spill during training March 30 at Laurel Park. The T6 vertebra is located in the thoracic (middle) region of the spine.
The 26-year-old missed three months in 2010 when he fractured the T8 vertebra in a spill.
“He is disappointed,” said Whitacre’s agent, Paul Plymire. “Grant is a hard working kid who will ride anything for anybody. He was riding day and night and doing okay, both here and at Charles Town.
Whitacre finished 11th in the rider standings at the recently completed Laurel Park meet. A winner of 337 races, he had the signature win of his career aboard Sumacha’hot in the 2009 Jim McKay Maryland Million Classic.
The jockey also portrayed Paul Feliciano in the 2010 movie “Secretariat.” Feliciano rode the 1973 Triple Crown winner in his first two career starts while as an apprentice, before the connections turned to the more experienced Ron Turcotte.