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Fashionable Fillies Luncheon Comes to Lexington

The Fashionable Fillies Luncheon, a long-time fixture at Saratoga and added at Santa Anita this year, will be held in Lexington as part of the Breeders' Cup Festival Week. The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation will host the event at Jeff Ruby's on Nov. 2 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with TOPSINLEX as media partner. The event will honor Middlebrook Farm's Helen Alexander and Keeneland's Shannon Arvin, both The Jockey Club members and Safety Net trustees.

The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation is a charitable trust which provides, on a confidential basis, financial relief and assistance to needy members of the Thoroughbred industry and their families. The luncheon will offer cocktails and Jackson Family wines, food stations and passed hors d'oeuvres with Kentucky favorites, live music by Throwdown Thursday, and shopping from local vendors such as Boulevard Home, AJ's Clothing, and Breeders' Cup Milliner Christine A. Moore.

“The Fashionable Fillies Luncheon has been one of the Safety Net's most successful fundraisers in Saratoga and California,” said Shannon Kelly, executive director for the foundation. “We are very excited to bring this luncheon to Lexington to help support the backstretch community in Kentucky.”

All proceeds from the event will be earmarked by the foundation to benefit the backstretch community in Kentucky, and local chaplains' and horsemen's organizations will help ensure the funds are distributed to those most in need. For tickets and sponsorship opportunities, please click here.

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Longtime Handal Assistant Jose Mejia Suffers Severe Injuries In Morning Spill At Turfway Park

Longtime assistant to trainer Raymond Handal, Jose Mejia suffered severe injuries in a Sunday morning spill at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky.

According to Handal's Facebook post and a GoFundMe page, Mejia's mount stumbled and went down, landing on top of him. The 33-year-old assistant had to be airlifted to the hospital and was found to have incurred 10 broken ribs as well as four broken vertebrae in his spine.

Mejia underwent surgery to fuse the spine with rods and screws, and still has no feeling below his ribcage. Doctors are unsure whether that feeling will return.

“Anyone that is familiar with Handal Racing knows that Jose Mejia has been an integral part of the operation from almost the very beginning,” Handal wrote. “He's a hard worker, a team player, and most recently has been the ring leader of our strings on the road at Monmouth and Turfway.”

On Handal's website, Mejia is listed as the “Traveling Assistant” in charge of ensuring that “horses are safe and happy when they are required to travel away from their home track in order to race,” and the man in charge of the barn's shed row at Saratoga Race Course.

On Steve Byk's At The Races show Wednesday, Handal explained the incident further.

“It was just an unfortunate incident,” Handal said. “The track had closed for a couple days, and the first day that it reopened he was just doing a routine gallop with one of the horses there at Turfway. The horse switched to his right lead down the backside right around the three-quarters, took a funky step and stumbled. Jose tried to kind of take his head up a little bit, to try to help him recover like you would, but he just had too much momentum going forward. He went down and rolled over on top of him. It was a pretty horrific scene.”

The horse escaped the incident unscathed, getting to his feet and shortly thereafter was corralled by the outriders.

Mejia, however, did not move, and wound up requiring an airlift to the hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“He's been with me since the beginning, since I started training,” Handal explained (his career began in 2014). “He's just devoted himself and given so much to me and to our team and to so many different horses over the years, he's just gone above and beyond.”

Mejia's 7-year-old daughter, Callie, was staying with her mother in Connecticut over the weekend.

The Jockey Club's Safety Net Foundation responded to Handal's social media post, explaining that the organization is available to help fund Mejia's recovery.

The GoFundMe page to aide in Mejia's recovery is available here.

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The Jockey Club Donates To Tornado Relief In Western Kentucky

The Jockey Club, through its commercial subsidiaries, has donated $50,000 toward tornado relief in Western Kentucky in response to the areas that were devastated on Dec. 11.

The donation was made through a Go Fund Me site established by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association (https://www.gofundme.com/f/relief-for-western-kentucky?qid=7d0f09ff33c007abc965aea444af5411).

In addition, The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation, which provides financial relief and assistance to needy members of the Thoroughbred industry and their families, is prepared to help those in the racing community personally affected by the storms. Please visit tjcfoundation.org or call Shannon Kelly at (212) 521-5327 to inquire about eligibility.

The Jockey Club, founded in 1894 and dedicated to the improvement of Thoroughbred breeding and racing, is the breed registry for North American Thoroughbreds. In fulfillment of its mission, The Jockey Club, directly or through subsidiaries, provides support and leadership on a wide range of important industry initiatives, and it serves the information and technology needs of owners, breeders, media, fans and farms. It founded America's Best Racing (americasbestracing.net), the broad-based fan development initiative for Thoroughbred racing, and in partnership with the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, operates OwnerView (ownerview.com), the ownership resource. Additional information is available at jockeyclub.com.

The post The Jockey Club Donates To Tornado Relief In Western Kentucky appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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