Sellers Returns to Saddle on Saturday

Jockey Shane Sellers will return to the saddle Saturday at Churchill Downs when he pilots five horses, including Quick Tip in the $150,000 Cardinal Handicap (gr. IIT) and Eugene's Third Son in a 6 1/2-furlong optional allowance race. Saturday's mounts will be first for Sellers since he broke his tailbone in a freak Nov. 6 paddock accident.

Sellers was injured when he was tossed from a horse in the Churchill Downs paddock, just a couple of days after he had been left body sore by a spill following a turf race. He actually landed on his feet, but apparently broke his tailbone when he landed hard on his saddle before he hit the ground. His doctors said the injury would sideline him for four-to-six weeks, but Sellers vowed to be back in the saddle within two weeks.

"I'd be lying is I said I don't have pain," Sellers was quoted as saying in a release from Churchill Downs. "But I'm okay. I am god enough to ride."

Sellers and agent Fred Aime plan to be very selective in their choice of mounts over the final week of Churchill Downs' Fall Festival of Racing. They plan to move to Fair Grounds in New Orleans at the conclusion of this meet.

"I'm going to try to ride some live horses," he said. "I'm not going to go out there and ride 30-1 shots. It's not worth going out there and hurting myself. I've just come back to ride some of my good horses and continue to heal up and then head to New Orleans."