Timing Wasn’t Right for Ramsammy in Canada

Emile Ramsammy, who was fourth in the Hollywood Park jockeystandings behind Alex Solis, David Flores and Garrett Gomez, probably won’t return to riding the remainder of the meet after being injured in a spill at Woodbine on Sunday.

Ramsammy, who had gone to Toronto to ride Euchre in the $500,000 Queen’s Plate for trainer Bobby Frankel and owner Frank Stronach, suffered a broken right collarbone in an incident on a horse he wasn’t scheduled to ride.

He picked up the mount on Receive The King, the 2-1 favorite in the eighth race, because Mickey Walls, who was supposed to ride the horse, was still doing interviews after winning the Queen’s Plate aboard Woodcarver.

Around the turn, Receive The King broke his left foreleg and Ramsammy fell heavily to the track.

“It’s customary for the winning jockey of the Queen’s Plate to take off his mount because of the interviews,” said Ramsammy, who was twice the leading rider at Woodbine before coming to California. “It’s just one of those things that happens. You pick up a mount and end up going down. It’s just bad luck.”

*

Only four horses are considered probable for Monday’s $400,000 Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park, the next race in the National Thoroughbred Racing Assn.’s Champions on Fox series. Behrens, who leads the series with 28 points, six more than last Sunday’s Hollywood Gold Cup winner Real Quiet and eight more than Puerto Madero and the inactive Free House, is expected to face Down The Aisle, Golden Missile and Brushing Up.

*

After failing to win a race last week, jockey Kent Desormeaux had two victories Wednesday, one via disqualification aboard Moore’s Flat in the third race. In his other victory in the $56,400 Bold Reason Stakes, Desormeaux--aboard 11-1 shot Perugrino Bay--had to survive a claim of foul by jockey Isaias Enriquez, who rode third-place finisher Bristolville.

*

Funeral services will be held at Holy Angels Church in Arcadia at noon Friday for former jockey Fernando Alvarez, who died Sunday at 61. A Chilean native who rode in Southern California in the 1960s and 1970s, Alvarez scored his biggest victory with the late-running Quicken Tree in the 1970 Santa Anita Handicap.