Canterbury legend Paul Nolan – nicknamed the ‘Sod Surgeon’ by track announcer Paul Allen for his prowess negotiating the Canterbury turf course – was injured when his horse, Pure Chrome, collapsed beyond the wire after finishing the 8th race at Will Rogers Downs on Tuesday.

Miraculously Nolan suffered no broken bones in the incident but has severe swelling of the spine.  He was airlifted from the track to St. John’s Hospital where he is now in the Intensive Care Unit.

Jeremy Collier, trainer Kari Craddock’s assistant who spent the night with Nolan at the hospital, posted on Nolan’s Facebook page late Tuesday evening:

So they said it will be several months until he is back to normal. He will half to go to rehab and all that kind of stuff but with time and work they hope he will be completely healed. So praise God and continue to pray for a complete and speedy recovery. Also the reason he is in ICU is because of his blood pressure it is to low. So they said they need to keep it up because if they don’t it could cause his problems to be a real big problem

According to his wife Sherry, Nolan is “resting as comfortably as he can.”  It is too early for a prognosis until the swelling goes down but he does have movement and feeling in his extremities.

We will have more updates as they become available.