Jockey's goggles become tool for whipping coronavirus

Jockey’s goggles can be used by health-care workers in the fight against coronavirus.

Buoyed by Shirley Jerkens, the wife of trainer Jimmy Jerkens, jockeys at tracks currently racing in Florida, Oklahoma, and Arkansas are collecting new and used jockey’s goggles to send to hospitals nationwide for doctors and nurses to use as eye protection while treating coronavirus patients.

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Goggles for Docs, an effort to get eye protection in the hands of health-care workers treating patients with COVID-19, began in late March when Jon Schaefer, general manager for Berkshire East Mountain Resort, a ski resort in Massachusetts, received an email from a New York doctor looking for used goggles as hospitals quickly became overrun with patients and there was a need for additional equipment. Word quickly spread, and several ski resorts were involved collecting goggles.

Shirley Jerkens saw a news report about it and reached out to Trevor Crist, one of the founders of Goggles for Docs, with the idea of using jockey’s goggles. Crist and his associates sent photos of jockey’s goggles to medical professionals who okayed them for use. A list of which hospitals are accepting goggles can be found at www.gogglesfordocs.com.

Jerkens, who is currently in Saratoga, reached out to jockeys Tyler Gaffalione (Gulfstream), Ricardo Santana Jr. (Oaklawn Park), Lane Luzzi (Will Rogers Downs), and Ricky Ramirez (Remington Park) to see if they could help with collecting goggles. Chamisa Goodwin, a placing judge at Oaklawn Park, is assisting in getting the goggles from Oaklawn sent to Goggles for Docs or directly to local hospitals that are in need of equipment.

Jerkens said Gaffalione also has reached out to local tack shops to see what supplies they might have.

“Right now, the biggest need is in Florida, California, and New York,” Jerkens said.

Jerkens said she hopes to get other tracks involved once they start reopening.

“Our goal is to have every running racetrack set up a donation box for goggles that goes out to Goggles for Docs on a weekly or bi-weekly basis,” Jerkens said.

In less than a month, Goggles for Docs has collected close to 36,000 pairs of goggles (mostly ski goggles) with a need, as of Thursday, for about 5,000 more.

"We exhausted one resource and here comes the horse racing world," Schaefer said.