Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Jockey climbs back in top post
Maragh riding favorite year after serious injury
Just try not to lose consciousness. That was all Rajiv Maragh could think as he lay on the dirt at Belmont Park the afternoon of July 10, 2015. Seconds earlier, the full half-ton weight of the horse he’d been riding — Yourcreditisgood — had crashed down on him.
Like any top jockey, Maragh had long accepted pain as a daily companion. He’d fractured his pelvis, shattered his collarbone and broken his arm. But this was different. His body throbbed in every direction, and he fought to breathe.
“I felt it was a life-and-death situation,” he said.
When he reached a nearby hospital, doctors told him he wasn’t in mortal peril. But he had a broken rib, a punctured lung and eight fractured vertebrae.
Some doctors said he’d ride again. Others deemed it a long shot. Certainly, the affable Jamaican could not fathom that 22 months later, he’d take the reins of one of the top contenders in the 2017 Kentucky Derby: Irish War Cry.
A year ago, Maragh was still in an upperbody brace, kept up all night by pain that felt like someone hacking at his legs with an ax. When he flew to Florida to visit his family, he had to board the plane in a wheelchair. He didn’t feel any pangs of envy when he watched the Derby on television, because at that moment, he did not think of himself as a jockey.
And yet, even at his lowest moments, he did not give up hope that he’d become one again.
Encouraged by his wife, Angelina, and by friends such as trainer Graham Motion, who would ultimately give him the mount on Irish War Cry, he believed.
Motion was among Maragh’s most consistent supporters after the crash, traveling
to Long Island to visit him at home and encouraging him with regular notes and texts.
The 31-year-old Maragh first climbed back on a horse last September, 14 months after his spill at Belmont Park. He felt no fear. “But my balance wasn’t real good,” he recalled. “I was so weak compared to what I needed to be. I felt so washed up.”
Given that, he was surprised he felt well enough to resume racing in November. He did not put pressure on himself to regain vintage form immediately. He knew that top trainers would be cautious about putting him on their best horses. And he didn’t win much in his first two months back.
Come the turn of the year, he stayed in New York to accumulate rides and good results rather than traveling to Florida, where he’d be more likely to hook up with a potential Derby horse. And he did start to win more frequently.
Motion, a former Miramar resident, called Maragh about Irish War Cry at an uncertain moment in preparations for the Kentucky Derby. After looking like a potential favorite, the colt had faltered badly in finishing seventh at the March 4 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
“He told me he thought the horse was really settled by nature with a quiet demeanor,” Maragh recalled. “But he didn’t settle as much in the Fountain of Youth. He told me that wasn’t the horse he knew.”
Motion did not put Maragh on Irish War Cry out of charity. He wouldn’t do that with a horse of such great potential. He thought Maragh might offer the perfect set of fresh eyes to help the colt rediscover his best form.
As soon as he climbed on Irish War Cry for a workout at New York’s Aqueduct Racetrack, Maragh felt the calm, gifted horse that Motion had described. He wasn’t surprised when the colt patiently waited for the ideal moment to strike in a redemptive victory at the April 8 Wood Memorial.
After so many months in which he couldn’t do much of anything, Maragh was suddenly lined up to ride one of the top contenders in the 2017 Derby.
Maragh did not plan to arrive in Louisville until Friday night, because he was lined up to ride a good horse in New York earlier in the day. But he’s not pretending this is just another Derby for him.
“Yeah, I think this one is probably more meaningful because it’s more unexpected,” he said. “There’s no way at this time last year I thought I’d be here.”