Tampa Bay Downs community mourns loss of exercise rider Quintero

The death of exercise rider Daniel Quintero in a tragic pre-dawn training accident Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs cast a pall over the tight-knit racing community in Oldsmar, Fla.

The Tampa publicity department on Sunday issued a press release that detailed the reaction of Quintero’s family members to the terrible news, saying the 19-year-old Venezuela native “died what he loved doing.”

Quintero’s 45-year-old father, Ivan, and his 18-year-old brother, Darwin, arrived in Oldsmar late Saturday from Miami after being notified earlier in the day by authorities. Daniel’s mother, Jaquelys Rivera, lives in Caracas. An older brother, Diego, resides in Colombia, and a sister, Samantha, and another brother, Juan Pablo, live in Venezuela.

Quintero, an aspiring jockey, had exercised horses at La Rinconada racetrack in Caracas before moving with his younger brother to join their father in Florida last year, eventually working at the Palm Meadows training center on the Atlantic coast. He had been working at Tampa for about six weeks before his death.

“He tried to do things right and was very dedicated,” Ivan Quintero told Tampa publicity. “He was a good friend, a very good kid, and an excellent son.”

Through an interpreter, Darwin Quintero told track officials that he doesn’t “have any bad feelings for the races or the horses. He understands this is the risk we all take, but what he would like people to get out of this is we are people who come here looking for an opportunity, and sometimes we have to risk it all because there is always someone home waiting for us.”

Venezuelan jockey Samuel Marin, who first met Quintero in their shared homeland, said Quintero “would watch my races and ask me why I did something in a race or how I did it. He was working all the time to get better. He was happy, loved his job, and loved to talk about the races.

“[Saturday] was hard. We couldn’t believe that happened,” added Marin. “He was a nice kid, a special person. I have to believe that if he is gone, it’s because God has a plan about him.”

Quintero died when an oncoming horse apparently slammed into his airborne body as he was coming off his mount.

According to trainer Gregg Sacco, who was in close proximity to the accident when observing training near the half-mile pole on the backstretch, Quintero’s feet were out of the irons when his mount came flying past the “wrong way,” or clockwise, at a high, uncontrollable speed. The horse was barreling toward two Sacco horses who were in a routine gallop going counterclockwise.

“He was in the middle of the track, rolling,” Sacco said. “We didn’t really see it because it was still dark. What I can determine, our horse may have struck [Quintero] in the chest and he might have been dead on impact. It’s really tragic.”

Another witness said Quientero apparently went into immediate cardiac arrest and was not breathing when medical personnel rushed to his side.

The news spread quickly as the track was closed for training the rest of the morning. Tampa held a winner’s circle tribute to Quintero before the first race, while other tracks throughout the country, including Gulfstream Park, Santa Anita, Laurel Park, and Golden Gate Fields, also honored him with a moment of silence during their race cards.

◗ Sacco, who saddled two winners Saturday, has starters in the third and fourth races Wednesday, when a new four-day race week gets under way with a nine-race card that starts at 12:30 p.m. Eastern. Mostly sunny skies and a high of 78 are in the local forecast.

Sacco, a trainer since 1989, is wintering at Tampa for the first time. He starts the week tied for fifth in the local trainer standings with nine wins, behind Gerald Bennett (20) and Jorge Delgado (18).