Exercise Rider

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- Exercise rider Mary Rafferty died yesterday, five days after being thrown to the track at Gulfstream Park with such violent force that her spine was crushed.Rafferty died at Memorial Hospital. She was 41.Rafferty was thrown to the Hallandale track Monday morning when Vindication, a 4-year-old filly, broke a leg and fell. The exercise rider was knocked unconscious and never awoke."I thought highly of her in every regard," said Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens, who employed her. "She was extremely dedicated and made a tremendous sacrifice to work with horses.

For a sudden media phenomenon, Orb was remarkably relaxed on the morning of his first full day at Pimlico Tuesday as he gets ready to tackle the second jewel of racing's Triple Crown in Saturday's 138 th running of the Preakness Stakes. “He's got plenty of energy,” Shug McGaughey, Orb's trainer, told a small group of reporters and photographers outside the stakes barn at Pimlico, shortly after Orb had walked in the shed row and received his morning bath. “He's settled in well.” The bay muscular colt's chief attention Tuesday appeared to be focused on the long grassy area that sits just across the path from his stall and runs along the perimeter fence.

Raymond "Skeets" Holland, who had been a jockey an exercise rider at Maryland horse racing tracks for about 50 years, died Sunday of cancer at his home on Denmore Avenue in Northwest Baltimore.Mr. Holland, who was 83, retired as an exercise rider in 1978 after being thrown from a horse he was exercising at Pimlico Race Course.In 1966, he retired as a jockey after being hurt in a spill at Marlboro Race Track in Prince George's County days before the track was to honor him with a day named for him.That year was the first, with the exception of those spent in the Army during World War II, that he had gone through a racing season with out a winner since his first win in 1928 atCumberland.

Kevin Krigger walked the shed row this morning at Pimlico, wearing sunglasses and leading Goldencents, the 17th finisher at the Kentucky Derby, around Barn D. The colt had arrived at 1:30 in the morning, a few hours later than planned, on a van from New York, where he had flown earlier in the day from Louisville. Two of trainer Doug O'Neill's assistants -- Jack Sisterson and Tyler Cerin -- drove from Kentucky and were here to meet the horse. That was all planned. Krigger's presence came as a surprise.

Articles in the Sept. 15 and 18 editions of The Sun gave incorrect information about a car accident that killed Wybiena Uden, a 28-year-old exercise rider from Holland. The Sept. 13 accident occurred at the intersection of Dorsey Run Road and Junction Drive in Annapolis Junction in Howard County.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 9/21/96A memorial service for a popular backstretch worker will be held tomorrow morning at Laurel Park.Wybiena Uden, a 28-year-old exercise rider from Holland, was killed in a car wreck midday Friday on Brock Bridge Road near Laurel.

HALLANDALE, Fla. -- State steward Walter Blum says he will go to his bosses at the Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering and ask them to consider mandating safety vests for all exercise riders.This in the wake of two serious accidents Monday at Gulfstream Park, one of which left exercise rider Mary Rafferty, 41, in critical but stable conditon at Memorial Hospital in Hollywood with a broken back.According to trainer Allen Jerkens as well as another reliable source, Rafferty, who was not wearing a safety vest when she was thrown from a filly who broke a front leg, is paralyzed from the waist down.

An exercise rider is in critical condition in the intensive care unit at Sinai Hospital after a horse apparently flipped and fell on top of her yesterday morning during training on the track at Pimlico Race Course.Kathy Driscoll, 30, of New Freedom, Pa., was galloping For All, a 7-year-old gray gelding, for trainer Ron Cartwright when the horse apparently tripped on a loose leg bandage, somersaulted and landed on Driscoll.Contacted last night, Driscoll's fiance, George Beltone, said Driscoll broke her back and an arm and has bleeding inside her skull.

Exercise rider Kathy Driscoll is in "serious, but stable" condition and has been moved out of the intensive-care unit at Sinai Hospital.But she is "not out of the woods yet," according to her friend, horse owner Phyllis Dixon, who said yesterday that possible paralysis is still a cause for concern.Dixon said that Driscoll's sixth and seventh vertebrae were broken when she was thrown and was crushed beneath a horse at Pimlico Race Course during training hours Sunday morning.Dixon and Driscoll's fiance, George Beltone, were at Sinai yesterday and consulted with doctors.

Kathy Driscoll refers to herself as "a strong-willed individual."A week after the 40-year-old exercise rider was crushed beneath a horse at Pimlico Race Course, she is chatting on the phone from her bed at Sinai Hospital, where she is sheathed in a plastic body cast, and has even been up walking through the halls."

OXON HILL -- Ron Franklin is returning to Maryland racing. Five years after barring him from setting foot in any racetrack in the state because of continued substance abuse, the Maryland Racing Commission yesterday granted Franklin a one-year license as an exercise rider. And though that's a long way from being the toast of Baltimore -- and the country -- after riding Spectacular Bid to victories in the 1979 Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and a third-place finish in the Belmont Stakes, it's an equally long way from being out of racing.

The 1904 vintage National Bank building will be transformed Oct. 13 into the Graw Days' History @ the Bank. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., The Bank will have an array of horse racing artifacts, prints, racing silks and artwork. In addition, the Graw Days Speaker Series will feature authors, historians and ghost stories. Following a 10 a.m. opening ceremony, the Speaker Series begins at 10:30 a.m. with Grand Marshall Martha Hopkins and J. William Boniface, who will be sharing the podium.

Jazz Napravnik didn't even wait for her sister, Rosie, to get across the finish line. She saw the way the jockey was riding Believe You Can in the Kentucky Oaks, saw the horse stretch its legs down the final hundred yards under guidance from a nearly motionless rider, and she knew. "I just left my box, ran toward the winner's circle," Jazz Napravnik said. With her win in Kentucky, Rosie Napravnik, 24, pushed her name even further into the discussion of the country's top jockeys.

Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another is one regal-looking horse, a real show-stopper with a distinctive white, diamond-shaped patch on his forehead. As he moved around a back barn at Pimlico Race Course on Wednesday, the chestnut colt trained by Doug O'Neill made the other horses look like fly-ridden plow nags. Now the question is: is he just another attractive Derby winner that will wilt in the pressurized environment of the Preakness a week from Saturday? Or can he duplicate the amazing run he had at Churchill Downs five days ago and make the Preakness special by giving us a legitimate Triple Crown hope?

Michael Matz and his assistants are tired of the question - most trainers and riders are by this point in the week before the country's most talked-about horse race - and give mostly a perfunctory answer. "He's just a really nice horse," exercise rider Peter Brette said of Union Rags, one of the favorites to win the 138th Kentucky Derby on Saturday. "He's a nice, classy horse. " He's also the most scrutinized colt in a field that has fascinated even longtime observers of the sport.

Most of the entries in the 138 th Kentucky Derby galloped at Churchill Downs this morning, staying loose in front of a growing crowd. Creative Cause, the striking grey horse who caused some intrigue when he didn't come out to the track the last two days, looked very strong. Hansen, the near-white colt who won the Breeder's Cup Juvenile here last year, looked small but athletic and playful. “He eats everything,” trainer Michael Maker said. “None of it sticks. He goofs around too much.” Hansen mostly appeared to vacilate between antagonizing other horses and preening for photos.

Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom had a special visitor Friday when Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid stopped by to watch the colt go out for his morning exercise at Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton. Trainer Graham Motion said Animal Kingdom jogged a half-mile and galloped a mile with a pony and another horse to keep him company. "Everything seems to be going good," Motion said. "Hopefully he's oblivious to what is going on around him. " Motion has been happy to talk about the sport of horse racing this week.

Kevin Krigger walked the shed row this morning at Pimlico, wearing sunglasses and leading Goldencents, the 17th finisher at the Kentucky Derby, around Barn D. The colt had arrived at 1:30 in the morning, a few hours later than planned, on a van from New York, where he had flown earlier in the day from Louisville. Two of trainer Doug O'Neill's assistants -- Jack Sisterson and Tyler Cerin -- drove from Kentucky and were here to meet the horse. That was all planned. Krigger's presence came as a surprise.

Jazz Napravnik didn't even wait for her sister, Rosie, to get across the finish line. She saw the way the jockey was riding Believe You Can in the Kentucky Oaks, saw the horse stretch its legs down the final hundred yards under guidance from a nearly motionless rider, and she knew. "I just left my box, ran toward the winner's circle," Jazz Napravnik said. With her win in Kentucky, Rosie Napravnik, 24, pushed her name even further into the discussion of the country's top jockeys.

OXON HILL -- Ron Franklin is returning to Maryland racing. Five years after barring him from setting foot in any racetrack in the state because of continued substance abuse, the Maryland Racing Commission yesterday granted Franklin a one-year license as an exercise rider. And though that's a long way from being the toast of Baltimore -- and the country -- after riding Spectacular Bid to victories in the 1979 Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and a third-place finish in the Belmont Stakes, it's an equally long way from being out of racing.

Smarty Jones is one dude who's got it all together. Physically and mentally, he's a 10. He's that rarest of top-flight, intensely spirited thoroughbreds who isn't a nut case. He has learned to accept the controls his handlers have placed upon him, controls that have transformed him from a fast, overly aggressive adolescent into a professional racehorse. And physically, he's a rare gem. A Kentucky expert in equine biomechanics measured Smarty Jones the day after the Preakness and found him to be exquisitely assembled.