Feeling His Oats
“He looks like a freaking altar boy,” said jockey Angel Suarez Medero’s agent. “And he’s nicer than he looks.” A former agent added, “I don’t think I ever even heard the kid cuss.” Another former agent explained that his entry into racing was a surprise move: “He woke up one day, told his mom he wanted to be a jockey, and she said, ‘What?’” Suarez won 151 races in 2012 and earned national attention in his field. Then one night, say police, a neighbor at the Bensalem, Pa., apartment complex where Suarez lives with his girlfriend spotted him on a second-floor balcony, where he was ...er... racing his own horse. The neighbor fled and called police. Suarez broke through the glass door, was attacked by two dachshunds, and escaped out a window, the neighbor’s fiancé said. Then, police say, Suarez broke into someone else’s apartment and fought with the inhabitants, one of whom shot him. He kept fighting; eventually, police got him under control and took him away to face surgery and criminal charges. Even if it turns out drugs were involved, said police, that’s no excuse for a high-grade felony. (AC/Philadelphia Daily News) ...Then he’ll have a hard time getting his life back on track.Story Update: Medero indeed told a judge that he had smoked marijuana that night, but didn’t know if it had been laced with other drugs. “It wasn’t me that night,” he said, and did not remember the incident. The shooting left him in critical condition with damage to his liver and pancreas, and he was in a medically-induced coma for a week. Once recovered, he pleaded no contest to burglary, and was sentenced to 4-23 months in jail. After release, Medero was given permission by his parole officer to return to the track, where he was given a license to exercise horses and, later, a jockey’s license, and did well enough for his horses to win money more than half the time. “I’ve been lucky enough to be given a second chance in life,” he said, “and I’m trying to make the most of that chance.” Back on track indeed.
Original Publication Date: 04 January 2015
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 21.
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 21.
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