McCarron Seriously Hurt : Horse racing: He suffers broken legs and broken right forearm. Desormeaux suffers chest injury in fourth-race spill. Patrick Valenzuela takes over ride on Sunday Silence and wins the Californian.

Chris McCarron and Sunday Silence went in opposite directions Sunday, the jockey being hospitalized because of serious injuries suffered in an earlier race and the 1989 horse of the year making a successful return from knee surgery.

Almost three hours before he was to ride Sunday Silence in the $273,400 Californian at Hollywood Park, McCarron suffered broken legs and a broken right forearm in a fourth-race spill that resulted in the death of one horse and the hospitalization of jockey Kent Desormeaux.

Pat Valenzuela, whose drug-related suspension cost him the mount on Sunday Silence and led to McCarron winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic with the colt last fall, took over after McCarron’s accident and rode the colt to a 3/4-length victory.

McCarron, 35, whose horses have won 5,200 races and earned about $124 million in purses, went down midway around the far turn after the horse in front of him suffered a broken leg and fell. McCarron then was trampled by a trailing horse, Peerless Approach. McCarron will undergo surgery, probably on Tuesday, at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood.

McCarron’s broken left thigh bone is the same bone that was broken in October of 1986 in a spill at Santa Anita. An eight-ounce metal plate had to be inserted to repair that damage. He returned to racing the next March and in May won the Kentucky Derby on Alysheba. The plate was removed late that year but McCarron still walked with a limp from the injury.

Alan McCarron, the jockey’s brother, said that a steel rod would probably be installed from the hip to the knee of the left leg.

“This injury is less severe than the previous one,” said Alan McCarron, before he knew that his brother had also suffered a broken right leg.

“There’s no way this will threaten his career. He’s a big kid and can bounce back. They said he’d be out a long time the last time, and he came back two months sooner than they thought he would.”

One of the problems McCarron might have this time, however, is that because of the broken forearm, he won’t be able to use crutches and that could aid his therapy.

Dr. Robert Kerlan, the jockeys’ physician at Hollywood Park, would not speculate on how long McCarron would be sidelined.

Desormeaux, 20, was riding J. Nic’s Desire in the race, and they had made the lead at the three-eighths pole when the 4-year-old colt suffered a broken leg. On the banked turn, Desormeaux and McCarron went down in an instant, disappearing from the sight of the crowd. J. Nic’s Desire was destroyed.

Desormeaux, who won last year’s Eclipse Award, winning 598 races and breaking McCarron’s 15-year-old record, suffered a cracked sixth rib and bruises in the rib-cage area. Desormeaux told hospital officials that he felt well enough to go home, but they suggested that he stay overnight.

McCarron’s mount, Full Design, got back up under his own power and was led off the track.

Valenzuela had ridden Sunday Silence in 10 of his 11 races, winning the 1989 Santa Anita Derby, Kentucky Derby and Preakness, but after he tested positive for cocaine at Santa Anita last October, the Breeders’ Cup mount went to McCarron. Sunday Silence beat Easy Goer on Nov. 4 at Gulfstream Park, clinching the horse-of-the-year title.

That was Sunday Silence’s last race until Sunday. Sunday Silence, made the 1-10 favorite by the crowd of 27,383, broke awkwardly, but was still able to make the lead while running slow early fractions.

He had a one-length lead over Stylish Winner, a 6-year-old gelding with only one victory in the last 18 months, at the top of the stretch and was unable to pull away. Stylish Winner’s jockey, Corey Black, was busy with the whip, while Valenzuela, under strict orders from trainer Charlie Whittingham, didn’t hit Sunday Silence. Whittingham had been unhappy with the way Valenzuela repeatedly whipped Sunday Silence through the stretch of last year’s Santa Anita Derby, even though the colt won by 11 lengths.

Sunday Silence completed the 1 1/8 miles in 1:48, one-fifth of a second off the track record. He paid $2.20, with no place or show betting, and the $2 exacta on the winner and Stylish Winner returned $4.40. Charlatan III finished third.

Sunday Silence’s victory, his ninth in 13 starts, was worth $168,400, and boosted his earnings to $4.7 million. Only the retired Alysheba and John Henry have earned more, with respective totals of $6.6 million and $6.5 million.

Whittingham thought the Californian would prepare Sunday Silence for a more serious challenge, the $1-million Hollywood Gold Cup June 24.

“I thought the race turned out very well for him,” Whittingham said.

“He didn’t have too tough a race. Pat (Valenzuela) said it was very easy for him. He was just toying with them. So we’re in good shape.”

Whittingham owns Sunday Silence in partnership with Arthur Hancock, Ernest Gaillard and Zenya Yoshida.

“It’s a shame what happened to Chris,” Hancock said. “He’s a friend as well as our jockey. His injury took the sting out of this for us.”

Valenzuela hadn’t been on Sunday Silence since they won the Super Derby at Louisiana Downs Sept. 24.

“I tried not to think about Chris, because as a jockey you try to put spills in the back of your mind,” Valenzuela said. “I wish Chris the speediest recovery. He did a great job riding the horse.

“This horse is a machine. I have always felt that he was my horse. He was just toying with the horse coming up beside him, and when I asked him, he just accelerated. I never felt the others would ever get by him.”

Sunday Silence became Whittingham’s 11th Californian winner. Whittingham’s first winner of the stake, Porterhouse in 1956, was ridden by Pat Valenzuela’s uncle, Milo.

Robbie Davis, who suffered contusions deep bruises to his right leg in a spill at Hollywood Saturday, didn’t ride Sunday.

Killer Diller is out of next Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, having suffered an ankle injury in his stall. That leaves the race with nine probables--Unbridled, Land Rush, Go and Go, Yonder, Video Ranger, Hawaiian Pass, Country Day, Thirty Six Red and Baron de Vaux.