Jockey's plight reveals the "dark side" of the sport of kings.

Jockey's plight reveals the "dark side" of the sport of kings.
By ALLEN G. BREED
Associated Press
INSTITUTE, W.Va. -- Gary Birzer had two rituals before climbing into the saddle each night. First, he'd watch tapes of his idol, Pat Day, thoroughbred racing's top purse winner. Then he'd say a prayer.
"Our Father," he would say. "Keep your angels watching over us. If anybody falls, help them back up on their feet."
The 29-year-old jockey fell during a race at West Virginia's Mountaineer Park this summer. But unlike so many times before in his seven-year career, he didn't get back up.
Birzer awoke in a hospital to find himself paralyzed from the chest down. It was only then that he learned the catastrophic injury insurance he thought he had through the Jockeys' Guild had lapsed two years earlier, leaving only a $100,000 track policy to cover bills already topping $600,000.
Sport's controversy
Birzer's case has shined a light on a dark side of the "sport of kings" -- that the majority of the riders who wear the silks and drive this $18 billion-a-year industry have no safety net if they suffer a career-ending injury.
The controversy has sparked a jockey revolt over health care that has led to the ejection of riders from the hallowed twin-spired grounds of Churchill Downs where the Kentucky Derby is run. Some of the sport's biggest names have refused to ride in states that don't cover jockeys under worker's compensation.
Birzer was no Pat Day, but he made a decent living.
He won 765 of his 6,780 career starts, finished in the money another 1,562 times and earned his owners $10.2 million in purse money.
His wife Amy arrived at the track late July 20, a couple of minutes before the seventh race. Gary had already won twice that night.
She was standing with her back to the monitor when another jockey's wife ran up to her.
"Amy," she said. "Gary went down." Amy wasn't too concerned.
"I've seen him go down before, and he's always popped up," she says.
Accident and injury
Gary was in third place at the 3/8ths pole on the fast track when Lil Bit of Rouge broke down, pitching him headfirst into the dry dirt at about 40 mph. The next thing he remembers is asking the gate crew to straighten his legs.
They already were straight.
Gary's fifth and sixth vertebrae were crushed, his spinal cord severed. He could move his arms. But his physicians held out little hope he would ever again stand in the stirrups or grasp a set of reins.
Birzer no longer dreams of getting back on a horse. He's traded a mount of flesh, blood and sinew for one of rubber, leather and steel. The table where therapists move his withered legs at the West Virginia Rehabilitation Center outside Charleston is where his roller coaster of a racing career has come to a halt.
"It's over and done with now," he says.
The Guild has paid for a specially equipped van and a year's rent on an apartment in Cincinnati, close to Amy's family and The Drake Center, a renowned rehab facility. Several other top jockeys and owners pledged percentages of their winnings from last month's Breeders' Cup winnings to the Birzers.
Making up for lost time
While he waits to learn how he will pay his mounting bills, Birzer is making up for lost time with his wife and 2-year-old daughter, Robyn.
Robyn has made peace with Daddy's wheelchair, riding around the hospital in his lap and honking the horn. When they watch races on television, she mounts her plastic spring horse, her father's helmet perched atop her blond curls.
"Gid up, Daddy," she squeals. "Gid up."
Birzer shouts, "OK. Cheeses," as she poses for the winner's picture.
Birzer knows he probably will never ride a horse again. But he hopes to return to the track one day, perhaps as a trainer, judge or steward.
"It's in my blood still," he says.
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