His mount, Monkey Wrench, led the field through the clubhouse turn and into the backside before tiring. Entering the far turn, three rivals, including eventual winner Neverpopthecork and third-place finisher Red Hot Toddy, moved up to challenge and go by, but as they came down towards the rail, Monkey Wrench clipped heels with Red Hot Toddy and fell near the five-sixteenths pole. Another horse, Hillbilly Rock, fell over the Ramgeet and Monkey Wrench.

Julie Ramgeet watched the incident at home on her phone, her nine-year-old daughter watching at her side.

“This was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever felt,” Julie remembered. “My nine-year-old daughter doesn’t watch every race… but she was hanging over my shoulder, and when it happened, I dropped the phone. I just instantly went – it’s hell. It’s like everything just stopped. My daughter was losing it, and I was not well at that moment, either.”

While injuries never come at a good time, this one felt particularly inopportune to the Ramgeets. They had recently purchased a farm in neighboring Berkeley County, and, since Julie serves as his agent, their income hinged on Andre’s success on the track.

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Andre Ramgeet had lost most of the 2020 and 2021 seasons, riding just 27 mounts in those two years combined. The Covid-19 pandemic took a chunk out of his business, but more important – and more emotionally searing – was his young daughter’s open-heart surgery.

“Andre is the father to three children, one with special needs,” Julie Ramgeet said in announcing a Gofundme campaign that has raised more than $8,000. “He has sat on the side lines for quite some time, focusing on his children and family.”

With their daughter on the mend, the couple in 2022 returned to Charles Town, where Julie grew up and where Andre had enjoyed success as a bug rider.

Over the month or so prior to the injury, Andre’s business had begun to improve. He had won with six of 19 starters in the couple of weeks prior to the injury. His most lucrative recent win came aboard Jefferson Native, a horse Julie said was Andre’s “favorite,” in a state-bred allowance sprint for trainer Linda Dohlinger-Stehr.

Bigger things, the couple hoped, were on the way.

“Our business was really starting to pick up and we were hoping to get some mounts on the stakes nights,” Julie said.

The injury did more than put a crimp in those plans.

“I don’t know if Andre will ever be able to ride again,” she added.

For all their concern for the future, the couple is also angry to be sidelined by an incident Julie claimed was “totally avoidable.”

Following a steward’s inquiry into the incident, Red Hot Toddy was disqualified from third and placed last. In a July 21 ruling, Marshall Mendez, rider of Red Hot Toddy, was given a three-day suspension [July 27-29] for his role in the incident in a ruling signed by Charles Town stewards Denver Beckner, L. Robert Lotts and Lenny Rera.

In an interview, Beckner, one of three West Virginia Racing Commission stewards, stood behind the disqualification and the suspension, but at least one former local rider thought it seemed lighter than warranted.

In the ruling dated July 21, the stewards wrote, “Jockey Marshall Mendez let his mount ‘Red Hot Toddy’ angle in leaving the far turn, pushing ‘De’s Castle’ down taking the room away from ‘Monkey Wrench’ causing his rider to clip heels and fall in the first race, Saturday, July 15, 2023. ‘Red Hot Toddy’ was disqualified from third (3rd) and placed fifth (5th).”

“When we reviewed the replays of the race, we could tell that Andre’s horse was beginning to tire going into the far turn,” Beckner said. “But [Mendez] came over on him and forced J.D. [Acosta’s horse De’s Castle] down on Andre’s horse and that led to the spill. When we asked the jockeys about who was at fault, they were mixed on that. But since Andre’s horse went down, we thought the three-day suspension was justified.”

Former local leading rider Xavier Perez, who boasts a Grade I win and an appearance in the Breeders Cup Filly and Mare Sprint aboard the Ollie Figgins, III-trained Dance to Bristol, spoke on Ramgeet’s behalf when the stewards and jockeys watched replays of the race to decipher what happened. Because of his injuries, Ramgeet was unable to attend.

Perez said that while he was not convinced one jockey was completely to blame, he had expected Mendez would be handed a stiffer sentence.

“In my opinion, the whole incident was avoidable,” Perez said. “Andre’s horse was tired and he was beginning to back up, but he really had nowhere to go being along the rail. Marshall clearly came over on him and he could have waited a little bit before dropping over. But the ruling does not make sense to me. I thought three days was light. In Maryland, I think the stewards would have made the suspension two weeks.”

Ramgeet has since posted his side of the incident and subsequent ruling in his own words on his Facebook page.

“Since I didn’t have a chance [to] speak for myself in movies due to my injury… and I’ve not been well to speak my own truth I am ready to do so now,” Ramgeet wrote. “At this point I don’t think that I’m mad that I hit the ground, part of the game right. What’s not part of the game is the stewards here at Charles Town races don’t say anything toward reckless riding.”

Jockeys are supposed to drop in to take the inner path when possible, Ramgeet acknowledged. But they need to clear their rivals first. That didn’t happen here, and it’s not the first time, Ramgeet claimed.

Julie Ramgeet provided The Racing Biz a list of six incidents this year in which she said Andre Ramgeet had claimed foul. Based on a review of the charts, two of those foul claims were denied; four others are not mentioned in the charts at all, though in one circumstance, it appears the stewards may have rolled Ramgeet’s objection and another rider’s objection into one.

“So pretty much here at Charles Town the stewards are giving the riders, and all the young riders that was there during movies, a license to kill going into the turn at the quarter pole, and that if you’re on the inside going into that turn, there is a very likely chance to get dropped,” Andre Ramgeet continued on Facebook. “At every other track this is not the way this situation is handled, and these stewards here at Charles Town just let the riders get away with anything, and they let the riders tell them that the turn is dangerous, when actually it’s the way the riders ride the turn is what makes it dangerous, careless.”

He went on to conclude, “At this point right now, I will not be coming back to Charles Town to race ride. There needs to be change, and I’m speaking out about it, this is not okay. I’m sorry to the trainers that have been loyal to me and help me become successful. But until there is change I will not return.”

For all that, Julie, who said she has turned away potential business because of these safety concerns, said that she and her husband are trying to find the positive.

“I’m very grateful that he’s alive and for the love that we are getting,” she said. “We have a lot of good people on our side. It’s one day at a time; you just have to keep walking.”