Two days before the 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs, jockey Garrett Gomez was thrown from a horse named Indy Bouquet, who in the incident, broke a bone in her ankle and was later euthanized. Gomez was examined at a nearby hospital. His shoulder hurt, but it seemed like he was all right.
"Just watch me ride," he said the next day. "I'm a little achy, that's to be expected, I had a 1,200-pound animal fall on top of me yesterday."
Gomez, who weighed about 110 pounds, had been a professional jockey for twenty years. He was 38 years old. Twice he had won the Eclipse Award given to the country's best rider. And the next day, he was set to take on the most popular horse in America: the undefeated Zenyatta, who had been featured on 60 Minutes and been named to Oprah Winfrey's "O Power List."
At the time, Gomez was one of the world's leading jockeys. And his Breeders' Cup Classic mount, Blame, was no slouch. But the attention was on Zenyatta, whose record would improve to 20-0 with a win in the $5 million race. Blame was an afterthought. So was Gomez, who after riding earlier in the morning, had taken some ibuprofen and spent his final hour before the race icing his shoulder. He could hardly lift his arm by race time.
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