Garcia will have neck surgery after Prairie Meadows spill

Jockey Wilmer Garcia will have neck surgery Wednesday after being injured in a fall Sunday at Prairie Meadows, where he was in a tight race for the riding championship.

Garcia's agent, Becky Esch, told Horse Racing Nation on Tuesday that Garcia fractured his C-4 and C-5 vertebrae in the eighth race at Prairie Meadows when his horse Sweet Holiness clipped heels with another runner as they left the starting gate.

Esch said Garcia will require two surgeries, one from the front and one from the back. Doctors expected a full recovery.

Garcia is at a hospital in Des Moines, Iowa, and Esch visited him Tuesday morning. She said he was in good spirits and was showing improvement from Monday.

"From the time that it happened, he pretty much was paralyzed on the right side of his body," Esch said. "And he's come a long way even since then. He can move his arm probably 50 percent and his knee, he can pull up like 50 percent compared to the other one."

She said doctors can't predict how long it might take Garcia to recover until after the surgeries.

"In a perfect world, he'll have to be there a week, he'll recover from the surgery (for) six weeks, and then he can start to recover the rehabilitation process for a couple months," Esch said.

Garcia is in second place in the jockey standings at Prairie Meadows, with 47 wins, one behind Kylee Jordan and one ahead of Alex Birzer. His 27 percent win rate is No. 1 among riders there with more than five starts.