Jockey Alsagoor to miss at least three weeks

Jockey Abdul Alsagoor said on Friday that he hopes to resume riding at Del Mar in early September after sustaining a shoulder injury when he was unseated shortly after the start of a race last Sunday.

Alsagoor sustained the injury when the 3-year-old colt Brunchandcrunch veered toward the inside and struck a temporary rail shortly after the start of a maiden race at six furlongs.

“He ducked away” from me, Alsagoor said. “He did it really quick.”

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Alsagoor, who was briefly hospitalized last Sunday, said on Friday that he will need at least three weeks of recover and hopes to ride the final days of the current Del Mar meeting which ends on Sept. 8.

“I have to go through the doctor,” he said. “I’ll see him next week.”

Alsagoor, 23, is winless with eight mounts at the current meeting. Alsagoor has won 51 races in a career that saw limited opportunities in 2020 and 2021 before he became more active in 2022. Alsagoor won 30 races last year.

The incident with Brunchandcrunch led to a fast response by outrider Edwin Alferez, who caught the colt as he ran loose on the first turn. At the time, the other runners in the field were racing toward the end of the backstretch.

Alferez’s actions avoided a situation in which Brunchancrunch could have run loose down the stretch toward the oncoming runners. Such a scenario could have led to the race being voided or even an accident. Instead, Alferez kept control of Brunchandcrunch as the race was completed.

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