Veteran trainer Dwane Parker, 72, is recuperating at home following a training mishap at The Meadows that left him with multiple transverse process fractures
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Trainer Norm Parker said he and his father were training a pair of 2-year-olds on Thursday, Oct. 1 when the elder Parker’s horse stumbled and flipped him from the cart. The impact with the track caused the fractures to the transverse processes, which project from vertebrae and serve to attach muscles and ligaments.
“The good news is that the injuries are stable,” Norm Parker said. “The doctor fitted him with a brace and gave him medication to ease the inflammation. He’ll miss the Lexington sale, which he always enjoys. He’ll probably be out until about Christmas. I told him, ‘You picked a tough way to get the winter off.’”
Dwane Parker, who works with his son and trains several of his own horses, is the patriarch of a prominent harness racing family that, in addition to Norm, includes: daughter Kathy Parker, editor and general manager of The Horseman And Fair World; daughter Sally Bolon, a Standardbred owner who works closely with her husband, Rodney Bolon, in his The Meadows-based stable, and grandson Kyle Bolon, a trainer/driver at The Meadows. Also, his brother, Rex Parker, is a longtime Standardbred owner.
Please join SC in wishing Dwane Parker a full and speedy recovery.
(with files from The Meadows)