Aqueduct: Alvarado escapes serious injury in spill

Junior Alvarado, the leading rider through the first month of racing over the inner track, escaped serious injury after he was unseated from his mount in Friday’s fourth race.

According to Alvarado’s agent, Mike Sellitto, Alvarado needed just one stitch in his lip and had a bruised buttocks as a result of being unseated from Miss Dragon Lady, who clipped heels with Eva Lil down the backstretch run of the fourth race. Alvarado hit the ground hard and appeared to get stepped on by his own horse, though Sellitto said Alvarado told him that wasn’t the case.

Alvarado was taken off the track on a stretcher and transported by ambulance to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. He was scheduled to be released late Friday afternoon, Sellitto said.

Alvarado entered Friday’s card with 29 wins, two more than Ramon Dominguez. Coincidentally, Dominguez picked up the mount for Alvarado on American Classic and guided that 8-year-old gelding to victory in the fifth race. Dominguez then tied Alvarado when he rode Yawkey Way to victory in the eighth.

NYRA changes Lasix protocol

After allowing a horse to run on Lasix when he wasn’t scheduled to race on the anti-bleeding medication, the New York Racing Association has made a change to its in-house protocal in terms of reporting on Lasix.

The four Lasix veterinarians will call in to their supervisor after they have treated horses scheduled to run in the first two races on a given card. Then, the Lasix veterinarians will meet following the second race as had been their usual protocol.

The change, which went into effect Thursday, came following an incident in which the horse Summer Sunset won a race Dec. 29 while running on Lasix when he wasn’t supposed to have been given the medication. Summer Sunset won the second race on Dec. 29.