Former jockey Gary Stevens, a member of the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame, sustained a broken left collarbone when a horse he was working at Saratoga the morning of Aug. 15 collapsed and threw him to the track. He was treated at a Saratoga hospital.
The 47-year-old Stevens was in Saratoga over the weekend after giving the keynote address at the museum's Hall of Fame ceremony Aug. 13. He was working a horse for trainer Todd Pletcher, according to his wife, Angie Athayde-Stevens.
The press office at Saratoga was unable to provide any further details.
According to Daily Racing Form, Stevens was working the 2-year-old Thatcatismine for Pletcher when the horse suffered a fatal internal injury and fell just a few strides past the finish line on the main track.
Pletcher told the publication that Thatcatismine died instantly from what he believes was either a heart attack or ruptured aorta. A final determination will be made once a necropsy is performed, Pletcher said.
Stevens eventually got up and left the main track under his own power but was later taken by a friend to Albany Medical Center to get examined, DRF reported. Stevens was later seen icing his injury in Pletcher's office.
A winner of 4,888 races, Stevens retired from riding in 2005 but still likes to exercise horses in order to keep himself in shape.
Now a television commentator for horse racing events, mostly for HRTV, Stevens was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997.
