Rillito Park Racetrack officials will pay tribute Saturday to a longtime jockey who died after falling from his horse during a race.
Richard Gamez, 66, had been racing horses at Rillito for nearly 50 years, a member of a well-known Southern Arizona equestrian family.
Gamez was leading Sunday’s fifth race and headed into the final turn when the horse stumbled and Gamez was unseated and trampled. He was taken to Banner-University Medical Center where he died from his injuries.
Gamez’s death is the first at the track since the 1960s, according to Rillito Park Foundation president Jaye Wells, who said Gamez was “fit as a fiddle” going into the race.
Family members, friends and people who worked with Gamez in the racing industry took to the track’s Facebook page throughout the week to express their shock and sadness over his death. “He was the last one to ride my mare the other week. Snug a beautiful second in the stakes,” Emily Majkrzak said in a post.
“Now she will enter again for this weekend’s stakes, without him in body, but there in spirit.”
Multiple people shared their experiences watching Gamez race, including one man who said he started watching Gamez when he was 12 years old, and a woman who said she’d forever miss seeing his smile as he rode out of the paddock.
The foundation and track will honor Gamez during Saturday’s races, with his photo on the cover of the program and a tribute article.
The track’s jockeys have requested a moment of silence for Gamez, after which the track’s trumpeter will play “Amazing Grace."
Mine That Bird, the 2009 Kentucky Derby winner, will go out onto the track without a jockey, boots backwards in the stirrups.
"One champion honoring another," according to a news release from the foundation.
The tribute is expected to take place at 1:30 p.m., before racing begins, Wells said.
Horsemen are setting up a fund for donations for Gamez’s family and funeral expenses, but details were not available Friday afternoon.
