Thornton hoping to return in four to five weeks from
injuries
To see badly bruised jockey Tim Thornton wearing a brace
and an arm sling while walking around Arlington Park in
recent days, it would be hard to fathom that the rider expects to be back in the
saddle in a mere four to five more weeks.
“I’ve always been one to tough it out and come back as soon
as possible,” Thornton said while chatting in the jockey’s room. “I’m expecting
to be back four or five weeks from now. It takes a lot to keep me down.”
Thornton received multiple injuries on June 13 at
Canterbury Park when he went to the Minnesota track to ride a horse for trainer
Joel Berndt, who has the bulk of his stable there this summer. The trip was
supposed to be as much social as for business. Recently retired jockey Tanner
Riggs, one of Thornton’s best friends, is serving as an assistant to Berndt and
the pair was planning a crawfish boil before the races that evening.
“I went up there to visit Tanner,” Thornton explained. “I
was planning to come in on Wednesday night and race there Thursday since we were
not racing here. He put me on a horse that was supposed to win. Joel said
whenever I’d come up there, he’d put me on one and pay for my flight.
“My flight on Wednesday got delayed and I didn’t arrive
until 3 (a.m.) in the morning. Tanner picked me up and I went to the track with him
that morning,” he continued. “We were going to have a crawfish boil but the
shipment got screwed up and they never arrived.”
Unfortunately, the missed crawfish boil was not the worst
thing to happen to Thornton that day.
“So that night I’m riding a horse (Key the
Code) for Joel, a horse that I had ridden for (Mike) Reavis,” he continued. “I
had broken his maiden at Hawthorne and Joel claimed him. Joel put me on and he
was the (2-1) favorite. He had just run second in the same (kind of) race in his
last start.
“I was laying third and there was a horse (Executive
Action) on the inside of me on the middle of turn. The jock on that horse (Denny
Velazquez) decided he needed out but he had absolutely nowhere to go. He slammed
into me a couple of times as hard as he possibly could. My horse must’ve had his
legs in the air when I got slammed into and just crossed his legs.
“I’ve never had a horse fall with me that fast — ever. You
normally have some reaction time or time to start to take a hold of your horse
before something happens. I didn’t have time for even a thought, let alone a
reaction. I’m pretty sure the first thing that hit the ground was my head and my
face. I hit so hard but I didn’t lose consciousness at all. My helmet and
goggles were all over my face.”
According to the Equibase chart, Waffle House Kid was
unable to avoid the fallen horse and threw his rider, Justin Sheppard, to the
track.
“Justin was the first to get to me,” Thornton noted. “He
said he never saw anything like that. He said I was in a pool of blood. How I
got up and was walking around for minute, I don’t know. Justin unzipped my
(safety) vest and took off my helmet. I was bleeding everywhere.”
Though Thornton traveled solo to Minnesota, he was anything
but alone in his time of need.
“Tanner rode in the ambulance with me to the
hospital. He and his girlfriend, Valerie, stayed by my side all night,” he said.
“I went to one hospital and after they had done X-rays, I was rushed to a Level
1 trauma center. Tanner rode with me in that ambulance as well. They called my
sister Maria, who is staying with me this summer. She got (to the hospital)
right as Tanner and Valerie had to leave to go to work the next morning.
“Maria took great care of me. It was the worse pain I’ve
ever been in. My parents came up, too. I was in the hospital for four days. My
dad — who had pretty much just got back from picking my mom up in Florida where
she had been hurt — in one week flew from Oklahoma to Miami to pick up my
mother and drive her truck back to Oklahoma, and then two days later drove from
there to Minneapolis to drive me back to Chicago and then back to Oklahoma.”
The list of injuries to Thornton is long.
“Two fractures in
my skull — on the forehead,” he described. “One was vertical, right between my eyes. That was
the fracture that was all the way through to my brain. I had air pockets and
blood on my brain. I have a fractured sinus cavity and then another fracture
right above my right eyebrow.
“My humerus was broken in half — luckily that was a clean
break so I don’t have to have any surgery on it. I went to a specialist, Dr.
Walsh, and he said that will take about another three weeks to completely heal
and then a couple of weeks of physical therapy after that.”
However, Thornton is a quick healer and he looked much more
his old self on his second visit to the track a few days later.
“I was surprised at how fast all the swelling and bruising
went down,” he said. “They said the skull fractures will close up pretty quick
on their own. I knew who I was, what had happened, how it had happened. I had
zero memory loss but the CT scan showed I had a mild concussion. The headache
though was so bad that first week that I couldn’t put a hat on and you know me,
I always have a hat on. I feel naked without a hat on.”
Thornton is already back wearing a hat, and knowing the
26-year-old rider, he will be wearing silks again soon enough.
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