McCarron Happy to Be Back After Long Layoff

Last Sunday morning, at Ross Fenstermaker’s Santa Anita barn, the trainer asked jockey Chris McCarron if he would mind working a horse named Metronomic for five furlongs.

“Metronomic?” McCarron said. “He’s that horse that I rode for a mile and then I couldn’t get him pulled up until he went another mile.”

“Go ahead and get on him,” Fenstermaker said.

Surviving the workout with the high-strung Metronomic, McCarron came away convinced that it was time for his return to the races, a little ahead of schedule.

Thursday, McCarron boarded two horses, riding for the first time since he suffered a broken thigh bone in a five-horse spill at Santa Anita last Oct. 16.

With actors John Forsythe and Dick Van Patten forming part of the unofficial welcome-back committee in the paddock, McCarron finished seventh on Jigalores, a 7-2 shot in the fifth race, then came in sixth on Fenstermaker’s Fleeting Jet in the eighth.

McCarron was greeted by cheers and encouraging from the time he left the jockeys’ room until he left the racing surface after the fifth race.

“The anxious moments are over,” McCarron said after getting off Jigalores. “I was a little tired, but I felt great. I was rooting for the wire to be where the eighth pole was.”

Another thing that brought McCarron back was the chance to ride Senora in the $150,000 Santa Anita Oaks Sunday. McCarron wanted to ride some horses before the stake, and his superstitious agent, Scotty McClellan, didn’t want his rider returning today, which is Friday the 13th.

McCarron, who walks with a limp, has an eight-ounce stainless steel plate from just above his left knee to his waist.

“The leg is more stiff than painful,” said McCarron, who will be 32 March 27. “There’s some muscle discomfort. What I need to do is improve my coordination and strength. You remember the rest. You’re not going to forget in five months what you’ve been doing for 12 years. I had no qualms about returning. If I had any fear at all, I would have talked myself out of coming back.”

Before the accident, last year might have been McCarron’s best. He won his first Triple Crown race, taking the Belmont with Danzig Connection; he had several important horses that would be running in the $10 million Breeders’ Cup races in November, and he was en route to his fourth national money title, leading the standings by $500,000 with $9.1 million in purses.

Despite missing the last 2 1/2 months, McCarron finished fifth in the standings.

A year from now, McCarron must decide when surgeons can remove the plate. Recuperation time from that operation will be between six weeks and three months, and for a popular rider like McCarron, there is no good time to be sidelined.

“Right after Hollywood Park’s spring meet, with Del Mar just starting in July, might be the best time,” McCarron said. “The purses at Del Mar aren’t quite as good as they are in California the rest of the year.”