Life On The Farm Agrees With Prescott, Indiana’s All-Time Leading Jockey

Indiana racing history started with the length of a horse's nose.

On the evening of Sept. 21, 1995, Iwazza Bad Boy was let loose to set a wide-open pace in a six-furlong allowance at Hoosier Park, leading every jump but the last one. By the slimmest of margins, jockey Rodney Prescott got Red Blaze ahead by a nose at the wire, and piloted him back to the winner's circle.

Hoosier Park was in the first month of its inaugural Thoroughbred season, the first pari-mutuel meet for the breed in the state's history. Indiana native Prescott was in his second year of riding professionally, and it was his first win in his home state.

From that point on, the individual stories of Prescott and horse racing in Indiana could not be told without one playing a major role in the other.

Nearly 28 years after willing Red Blaze to the wire, Prescott is Indiana's all-time leading rider by wins across all breeds, combining both Horseshoe Indianapolis and the now-shuttered Hoosier Park. He's the only jockey to have ridden in the state every year that Indiana has offered pari-mutuel racing.

Prescott's win total in Indiana is a fair display of his talent in the saddle, but it's also part of a greater testament to his iron endurance. No jockey in North America took more mounts than Prescott each year from 2005 to 2007 – regularly riding two full cards in different Midwest states on the same day – and his high-water mark of 2,056 starts in 2005 is the most by any rider in a single year this side of the millennium. Second place isn't even close.

The 49-year-old remains one of the busiest riders at Horseshoe Indianapolis, but the time he once spent rushing to the next track to get on another horse is now spent at a different pace.

In 2021, Prescott purchased South Pointe Farm in Franklin, Ind., with his significant other Shannon McGovern, who also works as his jockey's agent. The farm is an easy 15-mile drive away from the track, through small towns and budding cornfields, and the long spring-to-fall meet that Horseshoe Indianapolis hosts means they don't need to travel any further than that to pay the bills, while the layups and boarded horses at the farm can keep the lights on during the off-season.

Prescott's not quite ready to begin life away from the jock's room, but whatever that looks like, the 32-acre farm will be a big part of it.

“I'm just getting older, and need something to do after I get done riding, and this place came up for sale,” Prescott said. “To tell you the truth, we were looking for something a little smaller, but this place came up for sale, and we ended up with it, and we love it. We have some broodmares here, and we own one ourselves. We have a few with partners, and we have a few layups and babies.”

From The Farm To The Track

The rural life is nothing new for Prescott, who grew up on a dairy farm in Portland, Ind., between Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, near the Ohio border.

Cows were the family business, but horses were their recreation, turning barrels and poles and even staging chariot races. Getting up at the crack of dawn to go fast on horses quickly became more appealing than doing it to milk cows, but pari-mutuel racing was still years away in Indiana.

Prescott had watched a few horse races at county fairs, but his exposure to a more organized product was limited. A conversation with a prominent Midwest Quarter Horse jockey, though, was enough for him to consider the racing life; even if it meant leaving home.

“I wanted to do something with horses, and I actually happened to be at the Hoosier Horse Fair, and they had a booth set up there promoting Quarter Horse racing in the state of Indiana,” Prescott said. “I started talking to Carter Riley, asking what you do to become a jockey, because I had no idea. I was a junior or senior in high school at the time.”

Prescott joined Riley at Pit Run Park, a non-pari-mutuel Quarter Horse track in Gibson City, Ill., that ran from 1982 to 1993. The veteran got the rookie work galloping horses in the mornings, and when the show moved to other tracks, Prescott followed.

He ended up at Turfway Park in the early spring before crossing the Ohio River later in the season to work at River Downs (known today as Belterra Park), galloping horses and getting youngsters ready for the races. He took his first professional mounts in June 1994 at River Downs, with the occasional trip to Mountaineer in West Virginia, and his first win came in Cincinnati a month later.

The ranks of young jockeys are filled with men and women whose biology will force them into a new career before their talent level would have ever driven them out, and Prescott said he was realistic about his expectations in those early years.

“I've always been a little taller, and everybody told me I was going to get too big,” he said. “I was 19-20 then, and I thought I'd only do it for a few years, and then end up someplace breaking babies, training or whatever, but I've been riding for 30 years.”

While Prescott was cutting his teeth in the Ohio Valley, Hoosier Park was finishing construction in Anderson, Ind., and the track held the state's inaugural pari-mutuel Standardbred meet in the fall of 1994. The debut Thoroughbred meet came a year later.

This began a years-long cycle of galloping horses in the mornings at River Downs, riding the afternoon card in Cincinnati, driving 2 1/2 hours to ride the night card at Hoosier Park, then driving back in the dark to start the process over in southern Ohio the following day. When Indiana Downs (later named Indiana Grand and known today as Horseshoe Indianapolis) opened in 2009 and divided the state's racing calendar in two, the drive shortened to an hour and a half.

At the peak of his production, Prescott was regularly riding up to 17 races a day. Having business consistent enough to juggle mounts at two different tracks was both a luxury and a necessity in a time before casino-expanded purses had hit the Midwest tracks.

“I was a little younger, and I had two kids,” he said. “My daughter (Anna) was born in 2000, and my son (Austin) was born in 2003. I'd bought a little farm in Ohio, so I was just working, trying to pay for that and pay for them. It's kind of what I had to do. The purses weren't great at River Downs, so I couldn't make a living there, and even here, they weren't that great back then. I was trying to make a living and get things paid for.”

By the early 2000s, Prescott was among the country's busiest jockeys, and he led the nation in starts for the first time in 2005 when he took 2,056 mounts (he was second by wins with 340). His nearest contemporary that year was Manoel Cruz with 1,678 starts, and no jockey has taken more mounts in a single season since 2000. At one point, he went 60 consecutive days with at least one mount, taking no days off.

“I thought, 'Man, I need to cut back,' and I did cut back,” he said. “It seemed like I was cutting back, and I was still riding more horses than anyone in the country.”

Prescott led the nation by starts again in 2006 (1,893) and he hit the three-peat in 2007 (1,634).

The jockey's physical durability was on full display in this timespan, but thriving in that grind is as much about mental durability. Necessity is a powerful motivator, but Prescott said his dairy farm upbringing helped instill the fortitude to get up each day and keep going. A cow's milking schedule is rigid, with no regard for weekends or sick days. The racing calendar can often look the same way.

It was often pushing midnight by the time the nightcap winner was being led to the winner's circle in Indiana and Prescott had to drive back to Ohio. For the most part, he made the drive by himself, using the dark interstate to rest his mind before resting his body.

“I listened to the radio a lot,” he said. “It was good thinking time, I guess, especially late at night.”

Staying Close To Home

With over 33,000 career starts under his belt between the Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, and over 4,200 wins, it's fair to say Prescott has had plenty of reps to hone his craft.

He's also had plenty of time to define his riding style. With all those trips around the track, though, the rider said his style is to not have a style; if he's on the best horse, he thinks he can get them to the wire first. It's that simple.

“I think it changes a little bit with age, and aches and pains,” he said. “I probably don't look as good on a horse as I did 20 years ago, but I still feel good on them, and I think I do a better job than I did 20 years ago, to tell you the truth.

“You just learn little things,” Prescott continued. “You've just been in every situation out there that you could possibly be in, and you learn not to panic. You learn how to read horses, and how much the horse next to you has, and you pretty much know the move the jock in front of you is going to make before he does. It's just routine, it's every day. That part of it, I think I've gotten better at.”

It's not uncommon for jockeys to move their tack to points around the country to climb the ladder or break a cold streak, but Prescott has rarely ventured outside of the Midwest and Kentucky over the course of nearly three decades.

Once again, necessity played a big role in that decision.

“I always had business here,” he said. “I've always done well. Once you start having kids, you want to be a little closer.

“I went to Ellis Park one year after my kids were born, and I spent two weeks there without coming home,” he continued. “It was the longest I was ever away from home once they were born. I remember coming home, and they grew while I was gone, and that was hard for me to take. That was the last year for Ellis.”

Prior to 2013, Hoosier Park and Horseshoe Indianapolis hosted multiple racing breeds, and they swapped meets at the halfway point of the year. When one hosted the under-saddle types, the other had harness racing. Then, the tracks became breed-exclusive, with Horseshoe Indianapolis taking over the Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses and Hoosier Park sticking with the Standardbreds.

Prescott enjoyed the setup at Hoosier Park, a seven-eighths oval with banked turns, but he said he's been impressed with how Horseshoe Indianapolis has evolved since it became the full-time home of flat racing.

“The track's changed over the years,” he said. “We've had different managements and trackmen. When they first opened, it was a lot more speed-biased than it is now. There's always maintenance to a track, and the track changes a little bit. I think it's really good right now. This is probably the best I've seen both the main course and the turf course.”

Staying in Indiana wasn't always a given for the hometown hero, though.

Prior to the state passing casino gaming for its racetracks in 2007, purses in Indiana were flagging, and even the strongest of body and will can't keep up the schedule Prescott was running forever. Without the additional purse funding, Prescott's life and career might have looked very different, along with the Indiana recordbook.

“I would have probably had to go somewhere else at some point, had they not,” he said. “I wouldn't be able to stay in one place now. If you look at the purses before the slots and after, there's no comparison. That helped a bunch. You wouldn't see half the people here if it wasn't for the slots.”

Not Your Average Jockey's Agent

Buying South Pointe Farm wasn't the first time that Prescott and McGovern have worked together.

McGovern has had Prescott's book at various points since 2017, when she first began representing him at Hawthorne Race Course about a year after they started dating.

An Illinois native, McGovern got her start as a groom at the former Fairmount Park (now FanDuel Sportsbook and Horse Racing), before learning how to gallop horses and getting out on the track. She hung her own shingle as a trainer in the Midwest in the mid-2000s, and then she began representing riders between stints as an assistant trainer for Larry Rivelli and Bernie Flint.

McGovern and Prescott first crossed paths in 2011 when she was running a pony horse business at the Indiana tracks, but they fell out of touch when she went to Florida to work for Rivelli. Their roads intersected again in 2017 when McGovern returned to Indiana to join Flint's staff.

When the 2017 racing season was over in Indiana, both Prescott and McGovern were at a crossroads with their next steps, so they decided to go in the same direction.

“Bernie goes to New Orleans after this, and he's got an assistant for there, so he didn't really need me for the winter,” McGovern said. “We were deciding what we wanted to do, because we had plans to go to Oaklawn, and I said 'Why don't you let me take your book and we'll go up to Chicago, because that's where I started and I had enough business there.' We had a pretty successful meet up there.”

McGovern became the first female jockey's agent to represent a meet-leading rider in Indiana's history when Prescott took the Horseshoe Indianapolis title in 2018.

Hustling mounts for jockeys is an overwhelmingly male-dominated profession, and McGovern described the atmosphere as “brutal” when she first started taking books, noting that agents she'd known and been friendly with for years quickly changed their tune once she became competition.

So, how did she persevere on such a difficult road?

“I'm not typically one to let someone walk over me,” she said. “I'm pretty vocal.”

Today, both McGovern and Prescott say their professional relationship is smooth sailing, but it wasn't without its bits of turbulence to get there.

In 2021, Prescott moved his book back to longtime agent John Herbstreit after a disagreement, while McGovern picked up Alex Achard and Samuel Bermudez. Prescott finished the Horseshoe Indianapolis meet as the third-leading rider by wins, while Bermudez racked up a career-best eight stakes victories.

When they got back on the same page, the two decided to race exclusively in Indiana, which they've done ever since. Though she's no longer juggling two riders and the drive is shorter, McGovern said managing Prescott's book is not without its own set of unique challenges.

“We like it because we're not traveling and there's a lot of racing opportunity here,” McGovern said. “That's a long meet. Where you run into the problem is a lot of the trainers you're riding for, eventually your horses will meet the same conditions, and then I've got to do what's best for my business and ride the best horse, but you also have to look out for the people that are loyal to you, too.”

It might be a lot of puzzle pieces to fit together, but McGovern was quick to say that having a jockey who merited it was a good problem to have.

“He's got a lot of patience,” McGovern said. “He doesn't really let things get to him. In this game, you're hired and fired, and re-hired. He just takes it all in stride. Nothing ever seems to get underneath his skin.

“He's my jock, but I'd probably have to say he's the best rider here.”

From The Track To The Farm

After getting on horses at a breakneck pace for years, mornings look a bit different for Prescott these days.

On a day off from the races in mid-June when horses were still on their morning jogs at Horseshoe Indianapolis, he and McGovern were home getting their pool ready for the summer.

Prescott admitted that adjusting to a slower way of life has been an incremental process, from riding two tracks a day, to one, to cutting back his racetrack schedule to focus on other things.

“I remember getting a couple days off and thinking, 'Jiminy Christmas, what do I do with myself?'” he said. “It just didn't seem right.”

Prescott remains among Horseshoe Indianapolis' top 10 jockeys by starts, but the farm's got plenty to keep him busy when he's not riding.

The long driveway back to their house is surrounded by pastures with new fencing he and McGovern have put in over the past couple years. The property is well kept-up, and their barn is clean enough to mistake it for a recent build, with good circulation and plentiful stalls filled with mares, babies, and layups.

They've got their hands in a lot of pots at South Pointe Farm, but it's all part of seeing what sticks for an undefined point in the future that goes beyond race riding.

“We've kind of slowed down a little bit riding this year compared to the last years, being a little more picky and choosy about what we do,” McGovern said. “Rodney's plans are to hopefully retire at 50, but it may come sooner, it may come later.

“Rodney broke 10 babies out here last year and kind of enjoyed it, except when it was real cold,” she continued.

Among the farm's residents is a Quarter Horse stallion, Strolinonafrghttrain, a son of graded stakes winner Freighttrain B, who the couple bred to the mare they own.

Indiana's Quarter Horse racing program is as robust as they come east of the Mississippi River, and Prescott has ridden plenty of winners among that breed over the years. If the ensuing foal reaches the track, competing aboard a horse he bred would certainly be a unique experience, but Prescott wasn't sure if the math would work out.

“It's pushing that date out there a little far,” he said with a chuckle. “We'll see what we're doing when that one gets to running. We're a long way from that.”

As long as Prescott keeps up a solid pace of winner's circle trips, which he's certainly been doing, his record as Indiana's winningest jockey is likely safe for as long as he's an active member of the Horseshoe Indianapolis colony.

It's a monumental achievement for a home-team rider whose career has grown with the state's industry, but Prescott maintains a remarkably zen outlook about his place within Indiana's racing history, and where it could go in the future as the stars of other jockeys rise.

“That's going to get broken, there's no doubt about it,” he said about the wins record. “There are probably others right behind me, but that is a lot of races to win in one spot. I've been here since day one, and it's always worked for me. There's never really been a reason for me to go anywhere else, and I've had a good career. Indiana's been good to me.”

Prescott was just as zen about what he wants out of the remainder of his career.

For all he's done in Indiana, Prescott has never booted home a winner in a graded stakes race, which means he's never won either of the state's signature heats: The Grade 3 Indiana Derby or the G3 Indiana Oaks.

Prescott has ridden in the Indiana Derby three times and the Oaks twice, with his best finish in either race being a fifth aboard Southern Africa in the 2007 Derby. He'll be plenty busy during Saturday's Indiana Derby card with seven mounts, four of them stakes races, but he was not booked for either of the day's graded races.

As Prescott walked through his barn and leaned against a door overlooking the pastures with a Thermos of coffee in his hand, graded stakes accolades weren't what was on his mind. His future was in front of him, and the road to get there looked a lot like the road he took.

“Just stay healthy, and win some more races. That's the goal,” he said. “It's kind of always been the goal, just win as many as you can, and do it again tomorrow.”

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