THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Horse Dangers Lurk Around Training Areas

The serious injuries suffered by assistant trainer Jeff Lukas when Tabasco Cat knocked him to the ground in the Santa Anita barn area six weeks ago are a reminder to backstretch employees that while most horses aren’t vicious, they can still be dangerous.

Charlie Whittingham, who has trained the animals for 60 years, thought about this for a few moments this week.

“Hell,” the 80-year-old Whittingham said, “you get hurt in football games. You can get hurt just walking down the street these days.”

Yes, but then this reporter reminded Whittingham of Perrault. In 1982, the English-bred horse gave Whittingham his first of three victories in the Arlington Million.

Perrault was a rogue, and I was aware of his reputation as I stood at the barn one morning a few days before the Million. I was closer to the adjoining stall of Erins Isle, talking to his owner, Brian Sweeney, but still not far enough away from Perrault. After a while, he lunged in our direction, biting me with full force on the right forearm. The arm was still sore the day Perrault won the race, and if I hadn’t been wearing a jacket, his nip probably would have broken the skin.

Whittingham smiled. “Yeah, he was that way,” the trainer said. “He probably slipped off your coat, or it could have been worse.”

A former Marine, Whittingham is incredibly fit and still carries around the grit acquired in the Corps. Over the years, his luck around horses has been as bad as anybody’s. His half-brother, Eddie, was killed after being kicked in the chest by a horse at San Luis Rey Downs, the training center in Bonsall.

“Eddie was icing the horse’s legs,” Whittingham said. “He said he was all right when they took him to the hospital. But two hours later, he was dead. He bled to death.”

When Charlie was a young man, a horse fell on him at Agua Caliente, breaking his left arm. And in 1989, the best horse Whittingham ever trained, Sunday Silence, almost landed a serious blow at Belmont Park.

In 1989, Sunday Silence had already won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, and the day before he would unsuccessfully try to sweep the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes, Whittingham was leading the colt to the track. In a tunnel that connected the paddock to the racing strip, Sunday Silence was spooked by a photographer. The horse reared in the air, clipping Whittingham near his right temple.

“If he had got me coming down instead of going up, it might have been a lot worse,” Whittingham said.

There have been horsemen who haven’t been as fortunate. An assistant to trainer Thad Ackel was killed at Del Mar after being kicked in a barn accident a few years ago. Joe Hernandez, the Santa Anita announcer who called 15,586 consecutive races, was kicked in the stomach by a horse in January 1972 and collapsed in his booth a couple of hours later. He never recovered from the injuries and died of complications a few days later.

Others have had close calls:

--A Preakness horse bit off the finger of his groom several years ago, and trainer David Cross had the tips of his fingers trimmed by one of his horses at Santa Anita.

--Loading a horse for a trip to Del Mar, trainer Doug Peterson was kicked in the chest. “The doctor told me that a few inches either way and I could have been dead,” Peterson said.

--On horseback, trainers Wayne Lukas and Johnny Nerud had scares, and Del Carroll was killed in 1982 when his horse threw him and ran off at Keeneland.

Lukas, Jeff’s father, cracked three ribs at Santa Anita.

After his spill at Belmont Park, Nerud was rushed to the Boston hospital of a famous neurosurgeon.

“I’m going to name a horse after you some day, Doc,” Nerud said later. “And it just won’t be any horse; it’ll be a good one.”

Dr. Fager, who won 18 of his 22 races, was elected to racing’s Hall of Fame in 1971, the year before Nerud was so honored.

--At Hialeah several years ago, another Hall of Fame trainer, Harry Trotsek, was doing what Jeff Lukas tried to do. Trotsek, who was in his 70s, put up his hands, but the runaway horse ran right through him.

After several weeks in the hospital, Trotsek was back working at Hialeah. Driving out the stable gate late one morning, he was broadsided by another car and hospitalized again.

It’s just like Charlie Whittingham says: You can get hurt anywhere.