Demon Like tumbled head first to the track sending Meier over the front of him and Meier landed hard on the track. "I broke my right shoulder right near the ball on the top," Meier continued. "Right now it's the size of my head it's so swollen. After X rays, the doctor told me I also had a broken rib. They pressed on it and I didn't feel anything, but they checked again and I did indeed break it." Demon Like was attended to quickly by track veterinarians, and they quickly cleared the blood from the horse's passageway. He popped up quickly after and was vanned back to the barn of trainer Noel Hickey. "Initially the vets didn't think he'd make it through the night," Hickey said. "But he kept up and is actually looking much better this morning. The quick action taken by everyone involved, including Meier, probably saved his life." Meier said he will be out for a couple of months, but looks to return to the saddle.
Edited from track notesHawthorne's all-time leading rider, Randy Meier, caught some bad luck in Monday's first race. Aboard 3-1 shot Demon Like, Meier was racing in the second flight of horses when something when wrong. "I saw blood start to fly from out of him and I tried to pull him up," stated Meier. "Right as I thought I had him, he propped and when I tried to lift his head up, he just passed out and went down."