Carmouche targeting March return from injury

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jockey Kendrick Carmouche, who broke his right leg in a spill at Kentucky Downs on Sept. 9, believes he’s on schedule for an early-March return to race-riding.

Carmouche recently began getting on a horse and jogging him at a farm near his Delaware home. It’s another step on what has been a long road back.

Carmouche said he had his last day of swimming on Wednesday, and the plan is start cardio exercises next week.

“I’m at the three-eighths pole right now,” Carmouche said Wednesday by phone from his home. “Believe me when I tell you I can’t wait.”

Carmouche, who turns 35 on Jan. 18, was aboard Chattel in the $500,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile Turf Sprint when the horse Impact, ridden by Adam Beschizza, ducked out in front of him. Chattel then clipped heels and went down, unseating Carmouche. Chattel suffered fatal injuries.

Carmouche said he was told by doctors that he would be out four to six months, and a return in early March – Carmouche is aiming for March 1 – would be six months.

“If it was another professional athlete, a basketball player or football player, they’d be out for like a year, from what the doctors told me,” Carmouche said. “It all depends how jockeys get fit and get back going, and the doctor said, ‘You look pretty forward in your therapy and healing, and it looks like we’re right on target for four to six months.’ ”

Carmouche, who won 104 races in 2018 before the injury, said he hopes to start getting on horses in the morning by mid-February at Parx and tracks in New York.

“Forget Florida, I can’t be away from my family,” Carmouche said.