By Margaret Ransom

In Part I of this story, Pam Gomez, wife of Hall of Fame jockey Garrett Gomez, discussed the early years of their marriage and Garrett’s ascent to riding superstardom. In Part II, she details his tragic fall and untimely death.

Part II

The Last Sober Day

Pam Gomez has a memory like a steel trap when it comes to her husband and their lives together, from the good times and the bad, the birth of their children, his highs as a jockey and his lows, his wins, losses and injuries, his multiple stints in rehab and even the last day he was ever sober.

On January 8, 2012, Gomez was headed to post at Santa Anita aboard a horse named Silver Summation before the day’s Daytona Stakes when he was tossed off and landed hard on his heel. Not only did he not ride the race, he was soon after headed straight to the emergency room at nearby Arcadia Methodist Hospital with a completely shattered heel.

At that time, Garrett had been sober for a number of years and his sobriety was of the utmost importance to the then 39-year-old jockey. He’d lost everything to drugs and alcohol in the past, including his family, and his acute self-awareness made him ever conscious of his sobriety.

“We were in the ER and he was in a ton of pain,” Pam recalls of that day shortly after New Year’s in 2012. “He had… (more)