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The horses are all fine and ready to race again, but one driver will be laid up awhile with a broken shoulder.
Tim Nehila of Scarborough suffered the injury in a crash during Sunday afternoon’s fourth race at Scarborough Downs.
“He’s going to be laid up for some time, but I can’t say how long,” said Mike Sweeney, publicity director for Scarborough Downs. “He’s back at home now and I imagine he’s coming to the barn to watch over his horses.”
Sweeney said it was one of those split-second situations that resulted in a domino effect.
“It was one of those chain reaction accidents,” Sweeney said. “It’s really a split-second decision process with 1,000-pound horses racing in close proximity of each other at 30 miles per hour.”
Sweeney described how the accident happened.
“Kingstar A [driven by Esau Cooper Jr., of Auburn]went on a run on the outside and kind of backed into one of the trailing horses as the driver was trying to get him out of harm’s way. Then the driver of the trailing horse, Broadmoor, wrapped into his horse trying to avoid Kingstar. When he did that, Timmy had no chance to avoid the collision and ended up running into the horse. Timmy’s horse went down onto the track and Timmy was thrown out of the sulky.”
The horse was quickly corralled by track personnel.
“The sulky remained attached to the horse and emergency crews immediately came onto the track and attended to both the driver and the horse,” said Sweeney. “The horse walked off the track under his own power with just minor scratches and Timmy was transported to Maine Medical Center.”
Sweeney said this is the first racing accident the track has had this season.
“We have our 31st racing day coming up and we run 10 dashes a day, so we’ve had one accident in 300 dashes,” he said. “I don’t know how many exactly we had last year, but I’m going to say it was less than 10.”
Fortunately, the track has emergency medical people on standby for each race.
“We have a full ambulance and a team of two EMTs for each race,” he said. “As a matter of fact, we can’t run a race if they’re not here.”
Payoff for pacers
Scarborough downs is gearing up for a big money race next week as the Eugene D’Alessandro Memorial Pacing Series championship race for colts and geldings. An eight-horse field of $3,000 claiming horses will compete for a $9,000 purse.
Sweeney listed three horses as early favorites: Alraes Valentine, trained by Jamie Gerard of Gardiner; Prince Rama A, owned by William Cote of Leeds; and Royas Romeo, owned by Richard Knight of Westbrook. Royas Romeo has won four straight races and Prince Rama A has won two.
aneff@bangordailynews.net
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