Apprentice Ortega had surgery on his pancreas after Del Mar spill
Apprentice jockey Cesar Ortega will be sidelined until the end of the year after suffering an injury to his pancreas in a seven-horse accident at Del Mar on Aug. 22.
Ortega, 26, was initially thought to have avoided a serious injury, but further examination in the days following the accident led to a more serious diagnosis, according to his wife, Emily.
Ortega underwent surgery on a lacerated pancreas and was hospitalized for several days in late August, Emily Ortega said.
“When they did the initial CT scan, they didn’t see anything,” she said in a recent interview. “It didn’t cause him issues until two days later, when the fluid collected in his abdomen.”
Doctors told her the injury was more common from an accident in which a child was struck in the stomach by the handlebars of a bicycle.
“He had no bruising,” she said.
Cesar Ortega is recovering at the couple’s home and is scheduled to undergo tests in late November or early December “to see if he can come back,” Emily Ortega said.
“He wants to come back.”
On Aug. 22, Ortega was riding at the back of a sprint for maiden claimers when a horse well in front of him clipped heels with a rival, causing one horse to fall and four others to be brought down. Ortega and jockey Emily Ellingwood were farther back in the field and were unseated from their mounts.
Ortega was briefly hospitalized that evening. Ortega had been involved in a one-horse spill two days earlier when his mount ducked to the inside shortly after the start of a sprint.
Ortega has won 61 races in his career – 19 in Quarter Horse or mixed-breed races and 42 on Thoroughbreds in a career that began at the Los Alamitos evening meeting in 2020.
Ortega, who began his involvement in racing as a groom, finished third in the standings at the two-week daytime Thoroughbred meeting at Los Alamitos in June and July with seven wins, but was winless with 49 mounts at the Del Mar summer meeting.
Emily Ortega said her husband hopes to receive doctor’s clearance to resume physical activity in early October, part of a process the rider hopes will eventually lead back to riding.