By Rick Armstrong

Harness racing isn't intended to be a contact sport, but it can be.

Veteran racer Dave Magee knows that fact all too well. Had he forgotten, the last couple weeks he's gotten plenty of reminders. They come in the form of shooting pains he gets with nearly every move he makes.

Get whacked from behind by about a thousand pounds of horse, turning you into a human missile flying for about 15 feet before you land on your right shoulder, and that's bound to happen.

For Magee it came in the fifth race at Hawthorne Race Course on July 15. The replay can still be viewed on the track's Web site. Be advised, even though the pictures are a bit grainy, the images are chilling.

"They said I flew really well, but I've got to work on the landing," said Magee, proving his wry sense of humor hadn't been knocked out of him. "I actually had grass stains on the knee (from landing on the inner turf track that is next to Hawthorne's ag limestone track)."

And running backs think 300-pound defensive linemen are tough.

"It was a good race," said Magee, winner of 10,000-plus career races. "We were approaching the ¾ pole (in the mile event). I had the favorite and was third on the outside. The horse on the lead on the outside (driven by Tim Tetrick) had a nasty break (of his gait)."

Michael Oosting, who was driving in front of Magee, then took up the story in comments published in a Hawthorne news release.

"I remember Tim's horse with a broken hobble," Oosting said. "Tim was steering him out of the way, but when he reached down to pick up the hobble, the horse stepped on it and turned right into us. There was no way for anybody to get out of the way. I kind of remember Dave's horse hitting me in the head and not a lot, for a while, after that."

Magee then picks it up.

"My horse's nose buried in (Oosting's) helmet, so I went right over him," he said. "Then a horse was plowing into me from behind. The last thing I remember was seeing a horse's body (Oosting's horse) inside the pylons.

"I landed on my shoulder and separated it. It's the one I broke (in an earlier accident) and had a rotator cuff problem with it. It's the one I need the most (in driving)."

Both drivers suffered concussions and both were taken to Loyola Medical Center but released that night.

"I remember my horse starting over the cart in front of me and my immediate thought was, 'We're going down,'" Magee said. "I remember getting hit with full force from behind. It only took three- to four-fifths of a second."

Dave's younger brother, Dean, who also drives at Hawthorne, wasn't in the race but caught a ride out to the scene from the barns behind the backstretch.

"He said later, 'Do you remember talking to me?' And I didn't," said Dave Magee. "Some of it is pretty hazy. They said I didn't want to go to the hospital. I guess I was walking in a daze."

He remembers it being a tangled up mess.

The horse that sent him flying "ended up laying on my sulky where I would have been sitting."

Trainer Mark Fransen and his wife, Lisa, who also live in rural Big Rock like Magee, helped sort things out and took him home from the hospital.

Oosting returned to racing within a week, but Magee will be out three to four months, his doctor says.

"He kind of broke my heart," said Magee, who sprained his back, broke his wrist and had a damaged optic nerve from a spill he took several years ago that sideline him two months.

"This wasn't my worst accident ever but the recovery will take longer. I was thinking I'd be out 4-6 weeks. It would have been quicker If I would have broken something."

The third degree separation requires no surgery but will need a lengthy rehabilitation.

Magee's wife, Cathy, didn't learn of the spill until he called home before leaving the hospital.

"It was about 20 to 12, so I figured he was letting me know he was leaving the track," she said. "I wasn't that alarmed but when he said, 'I'm at Loyola,' my heart started pounding, but he said he was getting ready to get released so I didn't think it could be too bad.

"When he came walking in, though, hunched over and taking really small steps, I couldn't believe they let him come home. And, without any pain pills."

It turned into a situation that had to be rectified when he started suffering muscle spasms at nearly every move the next day.

"You try to make the best of it," Magee said. "I'm past the mourning stage and into the recovery stage. When (the doctor) told me I'd be out 3-4 months it was kind of gut-wrenching. I'd been racing seven days a week and three qualifiers a week, trying to establish myself for the good stakes races in the fall.

"Now, I'm looking to a great 2006."

Apparently, says Cathy, with a shake of her head.

"The other day," she said incredulously, "he was up on the roof with our son trying to fix the antenna. I guess he's just getting antsy.

"I told him, 'I need a vacation.' He said, 'Just the two of us?' And I said, 'No, just me.'"

From the Aurora, Ill., Beacon News 7/31/05