According to the Associated Press, jockey Julia Brimo has been hospitalized in critical condition following a spill at Keeneland at Lexington, Ky.

      She was injured Friday when mount Golden Stride clipped heels
and fell during the first race, her third at the Keeneland fall meet.

      The track said in a statement that she was taken to University
of Kentucky Medical Center and listed in critical condition.
Keeneland didn’t provide details of her injuries.

      The 33-year-old from Ontario rode 75 winners in 2003 and
received the Sovereign Award as the top apprentice jockey in
Canada.

        She began her riding career in 2001 with hunters and jumpers.
She has 163 wins from 1,612 mounts in her career, riding horses
that have earned more than $5.5 million.

HOVDEY WRITES ABOUT LOCAL TRAINER SPECHT 

      Check out Daily Racing Form columnist Jay Hovdey’s column http://www.drf.com/news/article/108534.html on Santa Rosa trainer Steve Specht winning his 1,000th career victory.

      Hovdey also writes about the connections between Specht and fellow Northern California trainer Greg Gilchrist when they were both in the service.

      One thing Hovdey didn’t mention about the two trainers was how, following the service, the two reunited.

     About 15 years had passed since Specht was in the service. He had moved his tack to Golden Gate Fields and had been there for approximately a year. One day, in the middle of a move from Foster City to Castro Valley, Specht found his Basic Training book and began browsing through it, looking at the photos of his old service buddies.

     As he went through the book he came across a somewhat familiar face and the name Gilchrist. Specht remembered that sergeant Gilchrist was the guy that made him do all those push ups in the army.

      A couple of days later, while galloping a horse, Specht went past a trainer named Gilchrist and realized he looked a lot like the guy in the service. He thought to himself, what were the odds that he could possibly be the same person? 

     “I saw Gilchrist sitting there on his pony and I rode up to him and asked if he was in the army in 1969, and he said yes,” Specht remembered. And the rest is history. 

     “It really proves how small of a world it really is,” Specht added. “If we were in a different profession like construction or something, maybe, but a couple of horse trainers?

    Specht said that even to this day he sometimes calls Gilchrist sarge.