More Top Picks Anthbot M5 Review
player ready...The faces of thoroughbred racing need to be recognizable to more fans than simply those who subscribe to the Daily Racing Form.
Big-name jockeys are the bloodlines of a sport that needs all the help it can get. Horses come and go even quicker than before, with all the syndicated stud fees handed to 3-year-olds that win Triple Crown races. The jockeys are around a lot longer.
That’s why the retirements of Pat Day, Gary Stevens and Jerry Bailey in recent years have hurt horse racing. Put the 20 jockeys who’ll be in the irons Saturday in the 132nd Kentucky Derby in a lineup and the average racing fan probably couldn’t identify half of them.
With good reason. Four jockeys are riding in their first Derbies and 12 veterans of the race are still searching for their first visit to the Run for the Roses victory circle, including Edgar Prado, despite his 5,600 career victories.
While Stevens (three), Bailey (two) and Day (one) combined for six Derby wins, there are only four jockeys in this race who’ve won on the first Saturday in May, and Kent Desormeaux, the only one with two victories, has so fallen out of favor that he’s been riding in Japan for parts of the last five years to supplement his income.
Stevens, Bailey and Day were synonymous with the Derby. Besides their six victories, they combined for eight second-place finishes and four thirds. Don’t even try to compare them to the jockeys on the three horses that are on top of the morning-line odds. Alex Solis, John McKee and Prado are a combined 0-for-22, with Solis losing 14.
Even the Hall of Fame trainers who command more attention than today’s jockeys realize that this must change.
“There’s a changing of the guard,” D. Wayne Lukas said. “Somebody has a heck of an opportunity to step forward.”
That’s not necessarily new. Stewart Elliott, who won his first Derby with Smarty Jones in 2004, and Jeremy Rose, a first-timer who won two Triple Crown races last year with Afleet Alex, have not been back at Churchill Downs since. Mike Smith’s reward for ending his 0-for-11 Derby drought by bringing home Giacomo in 2005 is a mount on another 50-1 shot, Flashy Bull.
Then there’s the debate of how important a jockey is. Angelo Cordero Jr., who’s now an agent after bringing home three Derby winners, says the formula for a Derby victory is 90 percent the horse, 5 percent luck and 5 percent the trainer and jockey.
Several first-time Derby trainers have been bold enough to question whether too much emphasis is put on a jockey’s influence in winning a race.
Michael Matz, the conditioner of unbeaten Barbaro, says good horses make good riders and good trainers: “You have to find those horses.”
“The horse is doing the running,” said Dan Peitz, Steppenwolfer’s trainer. “If you end up with the right horse and the right scenario, you can get it done. There are a lot of good horsemen.”
For the sake of the sport, there needs to be more good jockeys.
Day, who’s associated with a track chaplain program, is confident that somebody will step forward.
“It’s not like it’s the first time at the rodeo for a lot of these guys,” he said. “They just need the right situation.”
That translates into a good horse and an equally good trainer who doesn’t meddle with the rider. Owners and trainers used to clamor for Stevens, Bailey and Day, although Bailey admits he missed out on three more Derby winners by selecting the wrong horse to ride. Now they trade jockeys with the same regularity that they change towels in their restrooms.
“You have to win this race to make a name for yourself,” Cordero said. “After I won with Cannonade (in 1974), I could get on almost any horse I wanted. That chance is out there for somebody.”
Somebody had better hurry. Those films of Cordero and Stevens at their best and Bailey’s memorable ride in 1996, when he did his impersonation of a New York City cab driver in directing Grindstone through traffic, are almost as grainy as those of Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack in their heydays.
Thoroughbred racing needs more high-profile jockeys. All these stories about unconventional owners and trainers with diverse backgrounds can only hold the interest of Daily Racing Form readers so long. The sport needs new faces.
THE ESSENTIALS
What: The 132nd running of the Kentucky Derby.
Where: Churchill Downs, Louisville.
Post time: 5 p.m. Saturday.
TV: 4 p.m., WMAQ-Ch. 5.
Neil Milbert’s predicted Top 3
More Top Picks Wood Chipper
%%
PP HORSE ODDS
8 Barbaro 4-1
5 Point Determined 12-1
7 Bob and John 12-1
Liam Durbin’s predicted Top 3
PP HORSE ODDS
8 Barbaro 4-1
18 Brother Derek 3-1
17 Lawyer Ron 4-1
%%
%%
%%