Two California jocks have surgery

Jockeys Ron Warren Jr. and Chad Schvaneveldt both underwent successful surgery early this week.

Warren, who suffered multiple injuries in a Feb. 4 spill, had 17 hours of surgery Tuesday at Stanford Hospital in Stanford, Calif.

Screws in his right leg, inserted to mend compound fractures of the tibia and fibula, were replaced, and the leg was placed in a stabilizing device.

In addition, he underwent plastic surgery to transplant skin and tissue to fill in a gap in the skin over his lower right leg. The surgery included the grafting of minute blood vessels.

If there are no complications from the procedure, Warren will be released from the hospital late next week. He faces at least one more operation, a bone graft, in six weeks.

A fracture in Warren's left hip and two pelvic fractures are all healing well. He faces six to eight months of rehabilitation.

Schvaneveldt had surgery Monday at UC-San Francisco Hospital to relieve an obstruction in his pancreas.

Schvaneveldt came down with pancreatitis last September and missed the entire fall Bay Meadows meeting. He returned to the races briefly in November at Golden Gate Fields before a recurrence sent him to the sidelines again after three weeks.