Hutter remains unconscious but stable after training accident
Cindy Hutter, an exercise rider and assistant trainer to her husband, George Weaver, was unconscious but remained in stable condition Monday morning at Albany Medical Center following an incident during training hours Sunday morning at Saratoga, according to her husband.
Hutter was galloping Vindatude, a 3-year-old filly whom Weaver bred and owns and who won her career debut at Belmont Park on June 26, when that horse had an apparent heart attack and went down on the Oklahoma training track. Hutter, according to those who saw the incident at Saratoga, was pinned underneath the horse, who died.
Hutter “has some small areas of brain bleed, but they’re not that concerned about that,” Weaver said Monday morning. “Based on all the imaging and data they’ve got, they think she’s going to come around and be fine. Hopefully, it happens sooner than later.
“She’s not conscious yet. She picks up her right arm, she squeezes her arm a little bit when they do try to wake her up. She’s not opened her eyes or tried to talk. We’re waiting for her to come around, and she will on her own schedule. It was a pretty traumatic accident. I’m sure when her body’s ready to let her wake up she will.”
In addition to the brain bleed, Hutter, 57, suffered broken ribs, a broken collarbone and has a lung injury, though Weaver said doctors didn’t tell him specifically it was a punctured lung.
Hutter who kept her last name when she and Weaver married 20 years ago, is a lifelong horseperson who in 1987 began galloping horses for trainer D. Wayne Lukas. She galloped, among others, champions Open Mind, Winning Colors, Flanders and Thunder Gulch. Hutter was among the first employees when Todd Pletcher left Lukas to begin his own training career in 1996. George Weaver also went to work for Pletcher before going out on his own in 2002.