It wasn’t his first, but it was definitely his worst. That’s the way Doug McNair, who is on the sidelines dealing with a crushed knuckle, described the scary-looking spill he was involved in at Grand River Raceway
this past Monday evening.
McNair told Trot Insider he’s hoping to be back in the bike sooner than later.
“I went to the specialist on Friday and the doctor told me I’ll need surgery to straighten up my pinkie finger,” said McNair. “He told me I can go without the surgery, too, and that’s what I’m going to do to speed things up. I was told if it gets bothering me I can come back in and they can do the surgery. I might wait until December and get it done then.”
McNair suffered the injury as a result of getting knocked out of his bike in the third race at Grand River Raceway last Monday evening. Despite hitting the ground hard, he didn’t suffer the injury until he was run over by a trailing horse.
“When I hit the track I felt fine,” said McNair. “I landed on my chest and still had my whip in my hand. I got run over by a wheel, and when I did it drove my hand into the ground; that’s when I think my knuckle shattered. I’ve been in four or five spills now, but this is the first time I’ve broken any bones.”
McNair was taken to hospital for x-rays and an evaluation the night of the accident, and he’s been back to the specialist of number of times since then.
“They froze the knuckle and reset it because it was moved back by an inch,” said McNair. “I had to go back yesterday to get it reset again, and this time they didn’t use any freezing. It was the most pain I’ve ever had in my life.
“I’ve got a cast around my whole hand, but I’ve got four fingers out of the cast,” he added. “I go to another specialist in a few weeks and it sounds like they can hopefully take it off then. The doctor told me I should have no problem driving as long as the knuckle doesn’t bother me. I’d really like to be back in time for the Molson Pace elims.”
McNair, who enjoyed a career year in 2010, became the youngest driver in the history of harness racing to reach 1,000 wins during last season’s 518-win campaign. Horses driven by McNair have banked in excess of $10 million to date.