He showed me the bite, and it was already swollen pretty bad. We left for the hospital immediately.

A lot of snake bites occur purely out of reaction. If someone picks up a rock or piece of wood a snake is laying under, the snake could strike out of defense.

Young children are especially susceptible to problems, mainly because of their size. Elderly people or those in poor health also are at increased risk of problems.

It's a pretty good size increase.

The pace was pretty high. At that point, I didn't know if I was going to make it back on, and if I did make it back on, I didn't know if I was going to have the legs. It was kind of one of those things where you wondered if you're doing it for no reason, but as soon as I got back, I knew we had a chance.

I talked to the directors and you know, myself and Robbie have had a pretty off and on spring -- a lot of sickness and injuries. Robbie crashed bad right before the classics started. He thought he would be back on form by now, but he was fighting a lot of discomforts, and right when he started getting better he got sick -- probably due to the stress trying to come back from an injury. He has had a pretty off spring for him, so he just wanted to stay home and rebuild. Coming here was going to be traveling, and the race is really an unknown to him.