Jockey St. Julien has spine surgery after spill

Jockey Marlon St. Julien underwent surgery Sunday for injuries to his spine resulting from a one-horse spill in the ninth race Saturday night at Prairie Meadows.

St. Julien’s mount, Carbaugh, was bumped and stumbled just after the start, hurling St. Julien to the dirt.

“He went headfirst into the ground,” said Bobby Dean, who has served as St. Julien’s agent since March 2017.

The Sunday surgery fused together vertebrae C5 and C7 in an attempt to keep pressure off St. Julien’s spinal cord, according to Dean’s wife, Robin, who was at the hospital Sunday. Robin Dean said St. Julien’s spinal cord was intact, but was being compressed by discs. The surgery was reported to have succeeded, but St. Julien is still being evaluated with regard to his range of motion and was on a ventilator through Sunday night. St. Julien was scheduled to be extubated Monday, according to Dean.

St. Julien, 46, is Louisiana native who has ridden extensively through the South and Midwest. He rode his first sanctioned race in 1989 and has logged 2,471 winners.

Jack Bishop Stakes on Friday

Pinch Hit, Dreamcall, and Divine Duchess are drawn in posts 1, 2, and 3 for the $50,000 Jack Bishop Stakes on Friday night at Prairie Meadows, and they appear to be the three principal players in this two-turn dirt stakes for fillies and mares.

The Brad Cox-trained Pinch Hit ships from Churchill, returning from a seven-month layoff to make her first start in 2018. Pinch Hit needed a drop to $40,000 maiden-claiming to notch her first win, which came during the winter of 2017, but progressed steadily last year to the point that she won the $100,000 Dogwood Stakes in September at Churchill.

Pinch Hit ran last summer in the Gardenia Stakes at Ellis Park, a one-mile race around roughly 1 1/2 turns, but the Jack Bishop marks her first true two-turn try since a maiden race long ago at Fair Grounds.

Dreamcall isn’t a stakes winner but holds a recency edge on Pinch Hit, though she also exits a layoff. Trained by Steve Asmussen, Dreamcall won a second-level allowance race when she last raced, on March 3 at Oaklawn, but got a great pace setup that start, and is a one-run closer in need of pace help and racing luck.

Locally based Divine Duchess, trained by Boyd Caster, appears to be working encouragingly for her first start at age 5, and had a strong summer 2017 at Prairie Meadows, winning two allowance races and finishing a close third in the $100,000 Iowa Distaff, won by the Asmussen-trained Danzatrice.

The Jack Bishop is carded as race 8 with a scheduled post time of 9:07 p.m. Central.