Horse racing notebook: Jockey Cruz Mendez’s friends hope for a ‘miracle’

Horse racing notebook: Jockey Cruz Mendez’s friends hope for a ‘miracle’

This week at Los Alamitos Race Course, all the talk is about the man who isn’t there. Cruz Mendez, a much-admired quarter-horse jockey at the Orange County track, remains in a nearby hospital after a fall in a race Saturday night left him with a spinal cord injury and paralysis in his legs. Mendez underwent surgery Sunday, and since then friends and friendly rivals have been trying to stay optimistic that the 40-year-old rider’s condition will i…