Jimmy Jerkens arrived in Saudi Arabia to embark on a new and very different chapter in his training career two months ago and what he's learned so far is that the learning curve is steeper than he had imagined. From the language to the culture to the racing itself, everything is different. He believes he will find his way, but has come to understand that it may take some time.
Jerkens sent out his first starter on July 15 and finished second with a horse named Honky Tonk Man (Tamayuz). He's had three runners since and the best showing among them was an eleventh-place finish.
“To be honest with you, I'm not crazy about how things started out over here,” Jerkens said.
After going out on his own in 1997 after serving as an assistant to his father, Hall of Famer Allen Jerkens, Jerkens soon developed a reputation as one of the best trainers on the NYRA circuit. He won 846 races, had a winning rate of 20 percent and sent out 78 graded stakes winners. But, somehow, over the years, Jerkens fell out of favor and his career went into a nosedive. He won just four races in 2022 and had just two winners this year through May. He knew he had to do something and when Prince Faisal bin Khalid Al Saud offered to hire him and give him 50 horses to train in Saudi Arabia, Jerkens was in no position to say no.
“I love New York racing,” he said. “I just wasn't making any headway. I had a good two, three years where I was not able to make it. I had some very good years in the past, but you have to keep it up to make a living. I had two, three bad years and it just killed me. It got to where I didn't want to get into a deeper hole. I figured I had to do something. So I chose this.”
He arrived in Saudi Arabia on May 22 and set up shop at King Khalid Racecourse, which is in the town of Ta'if. The Saudi racing circuit heads there every summer before returning to King Abdulaziz Racetrack in Riyadh for an October to March run.
There are so many horses in Ta'if that, in order to accommodate all the stables, the track opens for training at two in the morning. Jerkens said he usually gets there at 2:30. Training ends at 8, but the track reopens for training at 2 in the afternoon and stays open until 6.
But it's not the long hours that have given Jerkens problems. He said the track is unlike anything he's ever encountered in the U.S., so deep that in the seven-furlong race in which Honky Tonk Man finished second the winning time was 1:29.25. He's still trying to figure out the best way to prepare a horse to run over a track that is that tiring.
“The track is ultra, ultra slow,” he said. “It's unlike anything I've ever seen. It's really slow and cuppy and having it that way seems to be a tradition. Most horses need a start or two over it to do their best. The three I've run since the first one acted like they really needed the race bad. These horses don't gallop out 50 yards past the finish line. The jocks are getting the tack off of them in five seconds. The groom better be right there. It's so tiring horses don't have anything left for a gallop out. Who I am I to complain? I'm Johnny Come Lately. You try to get your horse ready for a race but at same time you don't want to go overboard. You don't want to work your horse 100 times just to have them ready to run one time. You try to save your horses for Riyadh. It's a fine line and it takes some figuring.”
He's also finding it difficult to deal with what he says is a lack of information.
“The biggest adjustment is the lack of information on the horses,” he said. “You are so used to looking at pp's and seeing everything right in front of you. There's no published workouts. They have charts but they're not detailed where you can tell where they were earlier in the race. People who work for me, they know who the speed in a race is just by memorizing the horses. Even on my own horses, I can't get good information on them. You'd like to see their past races, their past performances, like we have back home. It's just not like that. It's very frustrating. I want to know who I am running against. I want to know how they've been working. I want to know everything about them. You just don't have that. That's hard to get used to.”
While he's still trying to learn more about the competition, he's already discovered that the quality of the horses in Saudi Arabia is better than he had expected.
“This racing is a lot better than it used to be,” he said. “My owner used to have all the best horses. Now a lot of people have caught up. You wouldn't believe some of the pedigrees they have. There's a lot of Into Mischiefs. In one race we ran against a horse who is by War Front out of Lady Eli. You see a lot of American influence in the pedigrees. It's a lot tougher, a lot more competitive than it used to be.”
Jerkens had hoped that he would be joined in Saudi Arabia by his wife, Shirley, who works for the New York State Department of Education. But those plans have been put on hold because it doesn't appear that there are many employment opportunities for her in Saudi Arabia. The quiet nights at home are starting to get to him.
“I live in a nice little compound,” he said. “A South African trainer lives next door to me and we're pretty friendly. Outside of that, there's not much socializing. The compound is nowhere near as full as use to be. And there's no alcohol. You would like to have a nice glass of wine with your dinner every once in a while, but that's not happening. Outside of the horses, it's pretty lonely. I try to keep myself entertained with TV, the DVD player and by keeping up on the races back home. That's about it. Riyadh should be better. It's a lot more Americanized than it is here. It should be more interesting there. Everyone I work with has been supportive, but there's only so much they can do. It's taken a while to get used to the quietness.”
He signed a two-year contract. What will he do when it's over?
“Maybe things will go great and I'll renegotiate after two years,” he said. “I don't know. I have no idea.”
They race three days a week, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, at Ta'if and Jerkens said he will have some more runners in the days ahead. A winner or two would no doubt pick up his spirits. He's a good trainer. He should win races. For now, though, it's a work in progress.
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