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Unlike its Triple Crown counterparts, which each boast record win prices well into triple digits, the Preakness Stakes (G1) has historically been a race run true to form. In its first 147 years, including being split into two divisions in 1918, the Preakness has been won 73 times by favorites.

As much was expected in 1975, the Preakness' 100th anniversary, when Foolish Pleasure arrived at historic Pimlico Race Course with a gaudy record of 11 wins from 12 races and exited a popular come-from-behind 1 ¾-length triumph in the Kentucky Derby (G1).

Among the rivals he passed on the way to the winner's circle that day was Master Derby, a horse he beat by nearly seven lengths and would meet again in the Preakness – only with a much different result.

Sent off at odds of 23-1, Master Derby's one-length victory over Foolish Pleasure still stands as the biggest upset in Preakness history. Returning $48.80, it surpassed the $45.60 Coventry paid as a 21-1 long shot 50 years earlier.

“I never really looked at that. I was just happy to be riding a horse like that in a race like that,” Master Derby's jockey, Darrel McHargue, said. “I never was one much for really looking at what the toteboard said. That wasn't one of my interests.

“I get asked about it occasionally, but most of the time it's the distinction that you actually rode a Classic winner. That just stays with you,” he added. “I would like to have added a few more in there that didn't pay quite so much.”

Master Derby was a son of 1970 Kentucky Derby winner Dust Commander, bred and owned by Robert Lehmann's Golden Chance Stable and trained by William 'Smiley' Adams. After Lehmann died in January of 1974 at the age of 52, never having seen Master Derby's rise to stardom, his widow, Verna, carried on the stable.

Ten 3-year-olds would line up for the 1975 Preakness, five of them at double-digit odds: Prince Thou Art (15-1), Master Derby, the John Campo-trained entry of Just the Time and Media (27-1) and Bold Chapeau (72-1). Foolish Pleasure, the champion 2-year-old colt of 1974 that would be inducted into racing's Hall of Fame in 1995, was the 6-5 favorite.

Master Derby, who would break from Post 3, was given little chance of winning the Preakness despite a stellar record. A glorious chestnut with a bold blaze, he finished first or second in all 12 of his races as a juvenile with the Kindergarten (G3) and a division of the Dragoon (G3) at Liberty Bell among his victories.

As a 3-year-old, Master Derby began with a pair of sprint losses before winning the Louisiana Derby Trial Handicap (G2), now the Risen Star, over Fair Grounds rival Colonel Power and the Blue Grass (G1) in the slop at Keeneland with McHargue aboard. Back on a fast track for the Kentucky Derby, Master Derby could do no better than fourth.

“He was a very smart horse. Sitting in the gate, he would just be in there waiting for the gate to open and he was real easy to ride, because he was alert and more than willing whenever you wanted to use him,” McHargue said. “I thought he had a perfect trip in the Derby. In my mind, he didn't have any excuses. But then Smiley Adams mentioned to me that he'd lost some time with him prior to the Derby and he thought he'd run a better race in the Preakness, and he did. He sure did.”

Adams had to convince Verna Lehmann to spend an extra $10,000 – the equivalent of $57,000 today – to supplement Master Derby to the Preakness, where he was made the co-fourth choice on the morning line at odds of 8-1. Also supplemented was speedy California invader Native Guest, undefeated in four career starts in California for future Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel.

“Smiley Adams was a good horseman. He knew where his horses were, training-wise and fitness-wise, and he took care of his horses. He knew after the Derby. I said, 'This horse didn't have a straw in his path in the Derby. He had a perfect trip.' He said, 'I missed a little time with him. He'll be better this time.' And he was right,” McHargue said. “Now it might not be that big of a deal, but he had faith in him and he followed his beliefs. We all benefitted.”

Foolish Pleasure, trained by late Hall of Famer Leroy Jolley, drew the most attention coming into the Preakness, which drew a then-record crowd of 75,216. As expected, Native Guest went straight for the lead when the gates opened and put up fractions of :23 2/5 for the opening quarter-mile, followed closest by Media, Master Derby and Singh. Foolish Pleasure raced in seventh, behind Diabolo and Avatar, with Bold Chapeau and Prince Thou Art trailing the field.

Jockey Jorge Velasquez and Foolish Pleasure continued to save ground along the rail down the backstretch, waiting for the front-runners to tire, as the half-mile went in :47 1/5 and six furlongs in 1:11 1/5 with Native Guest still in front. McHargue and Master Derby were never more than two lengths away from the lead, and had closed to within a head as the field came to the quarter pole.

At that point McHargue gave Master Derby his cue, and he responded with a surge to straighten for home with a three-length lead. Meanwhile, Velasquez had tipped Foolish Pleasure out around horses on the turn to make their run, not unlike the move they made to win the Derby, but had less time to get there in the Preakness which, run at 1 3/16 miles, is a sixteenth of a mile shorter.

Velasquez set his sights on Master Derby, who began to drift outward in mid-stretch, and decided to duck back down to the inside to make a final bid that would come up a length short. Velasquez lodged an objection, claiming his forced late course change cost him, but the stewards ruled that Master Derby had a clear lead and the order of finish was unchanged.

“Our colt has had good luck before. He had it in the Wood Memorial and he had it in the Derby,” Jolley would tell Sports Illustrated. “Today it was somebody else's turn. Sometimes you use up the good luck, and you've got to take a bit of the bad.”

The victory, worth $158,100 ($886,994 today), was the sixth in nine races to start his 3-year-old season, with the Derby being his worst finish in 21 lifetime starts. Foolish Pleasure held second by a length over Diabolo, with late-running Prince Thou Art fourth. Avatar, Singh, Native Guest, Bold Chapeau, Just the Time and Media completed the order of finish.

“I really think I kind of got the jump on [Foolish Pleasure] that day. Master Derby being as he was, he was just waiting for the time when you asked him to accelerate, and he did it instantly,” McHargue said. “He was a horse that was forwardly placed. He wasn't necessarily on the lead, but he would just sit there and wait for you to give him a signal to go. When I did ask him, he really kicked in for all he was worth once they were coming in the stretch.

“He had a really fast turn of foot and rapid acceleration, so somebody would really have to be a better horse to beat him that day because he was well-trained, there was no fitness issues or anything like that. When he accelerated, I knew it would take a better horse to beat him because he was running his race that day. With a turn of foot like he had, you could really feel the acceleration beneath you,” he added. “I was glad to see the wire come, though.”

McHargue, still just 20 years old but a rising star who had won his first race barely three years prior, got the ultimate praise from Adams for what the media called a “cagey,” “cool” and “professional” ride.

“This jock here, he couldn't have rode him no better than today,” Adams told the New York Times. “What more can I say?”

Aside from being his first, and as it turned out only, win in a Classic race, it was an especially memorable victory for McHargue, an Oklahoma City native that was the leading rider at nearby Laurel Park in 1973 with 67 wins.

“I had some connections at the time from Maryland, so it took on a greater significance. It was a different time in my life, but having had success in Maryland and being able to spend quite a bit of time there, it was a very special time for me,” he said. “That's the thing. You go, 'Oh my God, I won the Preakness.' With all the people that are there and watching, it's a great experience for a young rider. I was on the horse that captured the day.”

Ironically it was Velasquez, rider of the beaten favorite, that would ultimately put the Preakness win into perspective for McHargue.

“I really got a sense of it even moreso one night when we were coming home from racing and I was on the plane with Jorge Velasquez. Jorge Velasquez was a guy who was an artist at riding, with his style, and he was riding the best horses in the country,” McHargue said. “It was nighttime and we were flying back and he said to me, 'What are you going to do now?' And I said, 'What do you mean?' And he said, 'Well, you've got to go somewhere. New York or California.' I hadn't really given it a whole lot of thought. I hadn't given it any thought, really. I said, 'Do you think I could make it there?' And he said, 'My God, you won the Preakness. Do you know what winning the Preakness means?' That's when it took on a whole new dimension. When I heard somebody of that caliber describing it that way, it really took on a higher place in my mind.”

Speaking to Kent Hollingsworth in Paris, Ky. two days after the Preakness, an interview contained in the archives of the Louis B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky, Verna Lehmann described what it was like to win the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown.

“That phone's been ringing all day long,” Lehmann said. “Bourbon County, I guess they went crazy here. I expected the telegrams and the telephone calls, but I wasn't expecting the flowers, so that was very nice.”

Asked whether she put a few dollars down on her Preakness horse, Lehmann said: “I don't bet on him. I had no reason why I don't. It was tempting to put a bet on him when he went off at 23-1. I couldn't believe it. I thought people just thought he couldn't run on a fast track. But they were wrong.”

Master Derby would go on to run third in the Belmont Stakes (G1) and Ak-Sar-Ben Omaha Gold Cup (G3) at 3 and win the Whirlaway (now Mineshaft) Handicap, New Orleans Handicap (G3) and Oaklawn Handicap (G3) at 4 and also run second in the Met Mile (G1) and Trenton Handicap (G2) before being retired following a fifth-place finish as the favorite in the Ak-Sar-Ben Cornhusker Handicap (G3).

Overall, Master Derby raced 33 times with 16 wins, eight seconds, four thirds and $698,624 in purse earnings. He stood stud at Gainesway Farm near Lexington, Ky., where he sired 31 stakes winners before his death at age 27 in 1999.

McHargue's riding career was short but brilliant. He won 2,553 between 1972 and 1988 with purse earnings of $39.6 million. In 1978 he won both the Eclipse Award as champion jockey and George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award as voted by his colleagues after setting a North American single-season earnings record of $6,188,353, breaking Steve Cauthen's mark set just the year before.

McHargue won a career-best 405 races in 1974, second in North America behind Chris McCarron's 546, beginning a six-year streak of ranking in the top 10 nationally in annual earnings. From 1976, when Equibase began compiling statistics, through 1988 he won 79 graded-stakes including six with Hall of Famer John Henry. McHargue won stakes on Hall of Famers Ancient Title and My Juliet and also rode such top horses as General Assembly, Run Dusty Run and Vigors.

The winner of six races on a single card at Santa Anita in 1978 and 1979, McHargue also tasted success internationally. During the 1980s he rode in both Ireland and England, where in 1984 his victories included the Irish St. Leger at the Curragh and the Jockey Club Cup at Ascot. In 2020, the Historic Review Committee voted McHargue into racing's Hall of Fame. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, his induction was delayed until 2021.

“That was unbelievable and completely unexpected,” McHargue said. “I'm glad to be one that landed on a lucky star that day.”

Chief steward for the state of California since 2015, McHargue credits Master Derby with taking his riding career to the next level.

“He was a dream to ride. He was a very mature and intelligent horse with lots of ability. Sometimes his intelligence would give you the capability to be the better horse on the day because he didn't do any silly stuff. He was always waiting for you and paying attention to you,” McHargue said. “As a 3-year-old he ran like a mature older horse. He didn't make many mistakes. And he had a turn of foot that when you asked him, whether it was to go through a hole or whatever it was, he gave it to you right then.

“I always thought he made the most of his ability through his brains and thought process,” he added. “He stayed sound throughout his career and that's a big thing. You don't realize it early on, but horses that go through all those races and go through the 3-year-old campaign starting in February, March and April and getting all the way through the Belmont, those are hard races, all three of them. For a horse to do that, they have to be special individuals, soundness-wise, to even make it through.”

The post ‘On The Horse That Captured The Day’: Darrel McHargue Recalls Biggest Upset In Preakness History appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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“I truly believe I was on the best horse today, and if I had to blame anyone, it would be me,” said a resigned Mike Smith. “She's my everything. She's just amazing. I just wish I would've been in the race a little earlier because I think the outcome would have been different.”

“It hurts more than I can explain,” he continued, as the tears broke through in the glare of photographers' flash bulbs. “Just because she should've won, and it was my fault. It hurts.”

The year was 2010. The Hall of Fame jockey had just lost one of the most high-profile Breeders' Cup Classics in history aboard Zenyatta in a heart-breaking, so-close stretch drive – her final start and her only loss. In an unconventional move, Breeders' Cup officials asked him to come into the post-race press conference, which is usually reserved for winners.

Looking back on the moment now, Smith remembers that he wanted to say no.

“My first reaction when they asked me to step in [to the press conference] is that I didn't want to, I didn't want to go in,” he said. “I wanted to go as far away from everyone as I could, and if I found a cliff, jump off it, to be honest with you. But I don't know. It's like God talked to me and said, let's see what you're really made of. Let's see if you can step up when things didn't go so well, and if you can explain what happened.

“I had such a love for her and with it being her last race, that magnified it even more. I knew there wasn't going to be a redemption for us as a team, me and her. That really added to it. I got in there and of course I was emotional but the grace of God gave me strength and got me through it and I felt so much better afterwards. I probably would have dragged that out a whole lot longer if I hadn't done something about that.”

When most of us fall short at work, we get to do it quietly. Even if they're not riding in the Breeders' Cup, jockeys' successes and mistakes are broadcast to television and computer screens around the country in real time. (Just ask Javier Castellano, who had to head to the Kentucky Derby paddock after seeing NBC flash a graphic beneath his name showing he was 0-for-15 Derby rides before this year's running.)

With the benefit of time and the wisdom that comes from experience, Smith looks back at that day a little differently.

“It wasn't the easiest night of my life, I'll tell you that,” he said. “But it's amazing how things happen. I'm not sure I'dve continued riding any longer, wouldn't have won a Triple Crown, several of the Breeders' Cups, and my life has turned out good. Sometimes things just happen for a reason. And look, I'm not saying that's why that happened, but isn't it funny how things happen that you thought in the moment was so horrific? … It really wasn't that bad, was it? She came out of the race happy and healthy and so did everyone else involved.”

He knows though that for jockeys with less experience, losses can feel tremendous, even when they're not in Grade 1s, and even when there isn't a room full of media, cameras and recorders running, watching you cry.

“If you win 20 percent of the time, you're really successful,” said Smith. “That means 80 percent of the time, you're a failure. You've got to lose 80 percent of the time and still be happy.”

In many ways, the backstretch is a small town. The same people see each other every day, from sunup to sundown, and everybody knows (or thinks they know) what everybody else is doing. People know if you won yesterday, and they know if you lost, and they probably have feelings about it. Like a small town, rumors, innuendo, and armchair analysis spread like wildfire.

“You hear stories about what's going on with you that you didn't even know,” said Darius Thorpe, who rides primarily at Charles Town. “It's like, why don't y'all just come to me and ask me about what's going on? Why are y'all so quick to mind my business? It's always a headline for somebody.”

It's easy to get sucked into this circular game of telephone. This can be a problem for jockeys, whose business can be so transient. Most riders accept that while they have a lot of influence on a horse's finish position in a race, much of the work toward that projected goal is already done by the time they get a leg up. While an observer watching the simulcast feed may think there's variability in the way a race may play out, jockeys speak openly about horses that are “supposed to win” and those that “are supposed to run third or fourth” because, despite their dreams of the winner's circle, they know not every mount is going to get them there.

Even the best riders go through slumps. Maybe a couple of horses that were “supposed to win” got boxed in or had off days, and a couple more finished mid-pack as projected. Suddenly, a jockey can go from winning a lot to winning less until gradually, they develop a smell. Trainers get allergic to them, and the calls for good horses stop coming, perpetuating the cycle.

“You start winning, you get on better horses, you keep winning,” said jockey Ferrin Peterson. “You have some losses, you start to get on slower horses, you get taken off horses you got along with and maybe still ran better for you. It's a snowball effect. And it's funny how everyone realizes it. It's the same with trainers and their owners … and yet no one can really seem to separate that out.”

All of this is harder if a jockey doesn't have a mentor or agent to lean on. In the European system, it's more common for a jockey to be on retainer with a trainer who may have multiple salaried riders on the same team who can help bring each other along.

“There's no room for that young kid to learn,” said Remi Bellocq, executive director of BCTC Equine. “They may go to a hot streak and win a bunch of races, so they go from a 10-pound bug to a five-pound bug, and then when they lose their bug, all of a sudden they're losing races and they start changing things around to try to work their way out of that slump, when sometimes you just have to wait. They need someone to say, 'You're riding fine, you're just in a slump' — that kind of guidance is super important for a young rider. Left to their own means, they don't know what to do. Three months ago, they were winning two races a day.”

Jockeys can also lose the mount on a horse for reasons that have nothing to do with them – or they may get blamed for a finish they think they had no control over. And when they hop off a horse only to be shouted at by an irate trainer, successful riders know they have to bite their tongue, even when they're aching to defend themselves.

“For that not to take a toll or make you have doubts about your own ability, you've got to have a pretty good head on your shoulders, let those kinds of things roll off your back,” said Bellocq. “Because that same trainer who you might hate right now might be the person who puts you on a stakes horse out of town.”

Even when things are going well, the social credit earned by racetrack success is fleeting.

“Everybody's always looking for you to do better,” said Andre Ramgeet, who rides alongside Thorpe at Charles Town. “Yeah, you just won two races for them yesterday, but what can you do for me today?”

As professional athletes, many jockeys say they already have a pretty good idea of when they screwed up a ride without the backstretch peanut gallery twittering about it. And most of them ruminate on it, struggling sometimes to compartmentalize and go on to the next race.

“Last night my husband rode a race,” said Julie Ramgeet, agent for her husband Andre, during an interview in April. “We were second choice but we really thought we were going to win. There was a split-second decision coming home, to go inside or outside. The filly doesn't like the inside pressure so he stayed to save ground. She dwelt there, and ended up running fourth. He came home and I think he just sat there for about an hour, defending in his own mind, I was trying to save ground. He's bringing it home. And that's coming home with a trainer who didn't verbally attack him after the race.”

Night racing at Charles Town usually has Ramgeet home around 12:30 a.m., and he's up again a few hours later to work horses – and sometimes to hear what other people think about his latest performance.

Social media

These days, it isn't just the gossip over steaming coffee by the rail that jockeys have to filter out – it's instant and relentless feedback via social media.

Smith said disgruntled horseplayers have always found a way to let him know what they think, but concedes that the engagement many people have with social media adds a new dimension to jockeys' mental health. ESPN recently reported on a rise in online harassment and abuse towards college athletes since the rise of sports betting – noting an overlap in gambling addiction, substance abuse, and mental health disorders that can feed a culture which supports the bullying of athletes online. Sometimes the online hate directed at riders is performance-focused, but it can also morph into serious and specific threats of personal violence.

“Nowadays with social media, and as much as these younger people are on it, you're listening to someone else's opinion over and over and over again,” Smith said. “It can't be very healthy, even if it's good stuff. You start believing in that stuff, whether it be good or bad.”

Thorpe said it's frustrating to hear from armchair jockeys who are often only looking at the pan or head-on camera view of a race. A jockey's spatial awareness in a pack of horses takes time to develop, and even once it's there, they have a very different physical viewpoint from the rest of us. They may not be able to see that gap ahead of them that opened up because there's a horse in the way, or may think they're closer up on a rival's heels than they are. Decisions get made in the irons that may make no sense to a viewer at home, but had a purpose in the moment.

None of that matters to social media trolls.

Julie Ramgeet says that her husband isn't as available on social media as others, and that she gets abuse instead.

“People are crazy,” she said. “They don't view them as human. I get messages myself telling me I should kill myself because I married this [expletive]. I tell my husband, I don't know how you do it because you exhaust me. He has me, but there are a lot of guys who internalize stuff and are just struggling.

“They're human beings. They're not machines.”

Meanwhile, Ramgeet points out that some of the worst offenders of social media abuse are often among the first to send kudos or well wishes after a successful ride or a serious injury, creating a cognitive dissonance that's hard for young riders to process. Younger riders start out without the wisdom of experience. Smith believes that even when people lavish support on a rider, it's better not to take it too closely to heart.

“Trust me, sometimes I'm not near as good as my mom thinks I am,” he quipped. “You've got to keep it as even as possible.”

For as much as jockeys hear themselves talked about, they're not in a position to talk too much about anyone or anything. Riders agree that if they feel they've been mistreated, or see something in the barn they're worried about, they're not at liberty to speak. If a jockey gets a reputation for stirring up trouble, they're only too easy to replace.

Then, there's the money

As jockeys start their day with as little breakfast as possible, swiping away Twitter notifications trashing their last ride, many of them are driving to a darkened racetrack to work for free.

Some tracks – though not all – are known as “working tracks,” at which it's common for trainers to have jockeys work horses in the morning for no pay, only the promise that they'll try to find them an afternoon mount. While the set-up can be appealing for a young rider trying to get their name out there, it puts the jockey at an immediate disadvantage. They have no recourse if a trainer doesn't keep to their word, and they're missing out on the per-horse fee that exercise riders working alongside are getting. Bellocq said freelance exercise riders in Kentucky make between $15 and $20 for each horse they work in the mornings, and salaried exercise riders make between $850 and $950 per week, sometimes with a day off.

Andre and Julie Ramgeet say that at Charles Town, jockeys routinely get on eight to 12 horses seven mornings a week with no pay, crossing their fingers they'll someday make it back during the races.

Afternoon or night-time earnings, for all but the most elite jockeys, often aren't much to write home about for a jockey just starting out. Wins earn the jockey 10 percent of the owner's portion of a purse. They're looking at 5 percent for a second- or third-place effort. Race riding veteran T.D. Houghton said that in Ohio, where he's riding a lot these days, finishing second in a race with a $30,000 purse nets the owner 20 percent, or $6,000. Jockeys get 5 percent of that, bringing his pay to $300. Then, the jockey pays his agent and his valet, shaving 20 to 30 percent more off the pre-tax total, leaving him around $225.

If they don't hit the board, a jockey can collect what's called a losing mount fee. The losing mount fee for cheaper races in Ohio is $65. If the race is a little nicer, it may go up to $75 or $80. In Kentucky, there's a sliding scale based on the purse of the race and the amount can go up to $100. That can make it worthwhile to forego a $15 fee for galloping a horse – but only if the trainer keeps their word and names the jockey on the horse.

“The wins are where we really make the most money,” said Houghton.

For jockeys in the top third or so of the country's earners, Bellocq says their reputations afford them a nicer quality horse running in a more expensive race, so they're able to gradually ride fewer horses if they choose without changing their pay. He estimates it takes at least two to five years to get to that point of being able to ease off the gas a little – and before that, it's a struggle financially.

After taxes, there's the expense of a rider's equipment. Houghton said he pays about $80 for a dozen pairs of goggles (about $6.66 per pair), and he has no idea how many packs he buys a year. Valets will sometimes stretch plastic wrap across them to preserve them from the grit that's in the kickback from the racing surface, but sooner or later, they get too scraped up to use.

Houghton's safety vests cost him $300, and his helmets are $375. He tries to have more than one helmet on hand so it's easier for valets to get equipment set up for him several races ahead. Jockey boots are often at least $100 new. Houghton remembers one fall in which he broke his tibia, along with several other bones, and stopped emergency medical personnel from cutting his boots off, sliding them off his broken leg instead to avoid one more expense later.

All of this – the expense, the constant hunger and thirst, the physical exhaustion, the emotional isolation – is that much harder to take when a jockey isn't winning or is laid up with an injury. Bellocq believes that for many jockeys, especially those who are in their late teens or early twenties starting out, their profession becomes their entire identity. When you suddenly can't be the thing that defines you, it's easy to spiral into a bad headspace.

“You feel like your whole life revolves around trying to get good horses and being a good jock and you're just not doing the right thing,” said Thorpe. “It takes a mental toll on you.”

Substances

Racing fans are aware that top jockeys have battled substance issues. Chris Antley, Garrett Gomez, Patrick Valenzuela, and Kent Desormeaux have all made headlines through the years for action against their licenses related to alcohol or substance use.

But people who see what jockeys go through daily say it's not just a sad coincidence that some of the most talented riders are also “troubled” by substance issues – it's a wonder that more of them aren't.

Darin Scharer has been the executive director at the Winners Foundation for six years, steering the non-profit's mission to provide support and referral sources for anyone in the California racing community that has been impacted by substance use disorder, mental illness, compulsive gambling, or other issues.

“I'm not a jockey, but what we do hear from them is that when you're winning, everything's great,” said Scharer. “But when you're losing, it's a lot of pressure.”

Scharer can't comment on the prevalence of substance in jockeys, but believes the extraordinary pressures on riders from all sides can erode mental health and make substance or alcohol use a more tempting solution either as a release from pressure or a way to help manage weight. In addition to the challenges of their job, Scharer said it's not uncommon to find jockeys or backstretch workers struggling with unprocessed trauma, which can increase their likelihood of getting involved with drugs or alcohol.

For many, Scharer said the psychological dependence on a substance is a more powerful force than physical dependence.

“If you were drinking and you were successful, if you had a problem with drinking you want to go back and recapture what you originally had when you were successful. But it doesn't work that way,” he said.

On top of all that, there's stigma attached, both to substance use disorder and to mental health issues.

“Jockeys can't come clean and say, 'Hey, I have depression or bipolar disorder,'” he said. “If they do that, mental health [problems] are still looked down on in this country, especially among athletes. They don't want to take medications [for these issues] because if I take medications, then I'm going to be stigmatized as having this disorder, and I could test positive and people might find out.”

Scharer said that the fishbowl nature of a jockey's life makes battling back substance issues even more challenging. Fans, colleagues, and media tend to ask a jockey fresh from a rehabilitation program how it's going, but if the rider doesn't stay sober, they're set up for even more shame when things fall apart.

“It's a very delicate balance of trying to help people, assist, give them resources, but at the end of the day they're under a lot of pressure,” Scharer said. “And that pressure, usually, not all the time, but usually results in them returning to something that worked for them.”

Jockeys told the Paulick Report that while breathalyzer tests are done routinely in some states, drug tests aren't as common. Several indicated they had been aware of riders in a jockey's room who may be impaired but said the self-contained environment of the room makes it difficult to say anything to racing officials. All said they wanted to see more routine drug and alcohol testing – to protect themselves from riding alongside someone with impaired judgment, but also in hopes that a positive test could trigger a colleague to get help.

Some riders have figured out how to time substance or alcohol use to avoid positive tests in the jockeys' room, Scharer said, although this strategy sometimes stops working as they age and their liver function slows.

Scharer said that even when someone is ordered by the state to complete a rehabilitation program, it can be effective, contrary to the popular belief that a person has to seek help voluntarily for it to stick.

“A long time ago, we used to think that about treatment, that if you weren't ready to get treatment, it was pointless,” said Scharer. “But realistically, there's a [model] called the stages of change, and where they are in the stages of change has a lot with how much you can do to at least plant the seed for them, and maybe show them a different way. A lot of it is really good counseling. It doesn't have to be where they initially want it, but maybe through great and effective counseling, someone can see a path to how to do something different than what they were doing before.”

Winners Foundation, which has been in operation for 39 years, is able to connect people with the right size and style of rehabilitation program that is most likely to help them, as well as connecting them with educational and therapeutic resources to support their recovery.

Winners is only structured to assist members of the racing industry in California, however; Scharer said there are programs in New York and Kentucky that function similarly, and Canterbury Park has an equine-assisted therapy program available to jockeys using OTTBs, but the model isn't the same everywhere. At many tracks, chaplains are the only racing-oriented resource for services like this – and they have a lot on their plates already.

The most important thing Scharer believes the industry can do to help jockeys, both those with and without substance use disorders?

“We need to reduce the stigma of mental health,” he said. “People need to understand it more. Education doesn't just need to go to people who have mental health challenges, education is needed for people who don't understand, or are afraid of it, or don't know how to treat it.”

The way forward

It's been about two months since Ashley Canchari's brother Alex died by suicide. The Canchari family are a racing family, and Ashley remembered that her brother was so proud when he first began riding races in 2011 after dreaming about it for years.

“The last years had been very dark for Alex,” Ashley Canchari wrote in a Facebook post. “I, as well as the rest of the family and most of his closest friends didn't understand it. I attributed it to his career and the never-ending pressures of the industry. Maybe it's the head injuries, or the constant flipping, the gambling addiction, or lack of sleep. I would try to rationalize what was going on even though it was completely nonsensical and just not Alex. It was such odd behavior that no one understood and no matter the attempts we made to get him back into the family, he went the other way.”

Ashley Canchari remembered taking time off work to fly to wherever Alex was to help him when he was in a slump, cleaning the house or helping him catch up on his bills when it seemed he couldn't.

“I hope you all remember Alex as the happy, charismatic, loving soul that he was,” she wrote. “He was so much more than a talented rider. As much as he wanted to entertain and give people all he could through riding, he did that in his friendships and relationships too. Alex just wanted people to feel at home, to feel loved, to feel important – to feel like they mattered. I'm heartbroken he didn't see or feel this within himself.”

Canchari said she believes her brother is now at peace, in a way he couldn't be on Earth. She's hopeful that his suicide, which followed closely on the heels of Avery Whisman's in January, advances an industry-wide conversation about mental health in jockeys.

In April, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority released an anonymous mental health survey to jockeys which could guide the availability of resources to riders.

Jockeys who spoke to the Paulick Report unanimously endorsed the idea of access to a sports psychologist or therapist in every jockeys' room, whether that means connecting riders to a local professional or providing the opportunity to use telehealth services to speak with someone. Many also suggested that having a nutritionist available to riders – a resource that is available to jockeys in England – could help them better manage the pressures of weight and physical fitness and relieve some of the daily grind.

But those solutions are systemic and largely in the hands of racing's stakeholders. Canchari believes there's a lot individuals can do, too.

“Let's all try to be kinder, to be nicer despite challenging times and circumstances,” she wrote. “There is literally never a time to call someone worthless, say that they are nothing, or to cuss them out. Words do hurt and can kill. No one knows the struggle people face each day within their own minds, so why not be kind?”

This is the second in our two-part series on jockeys' mental health. You can find Part 1 here.

The post ‘They’re Human Beings, They’re Not Machines’: The Mental Health Challenges Facing Jockeys appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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This is the first in a two-part series examining the physical, financial, and emotional pressures that can impact a jockey's mental health. The second part will publish on May 17. 

There is nothing in the world like riding a Thoroughbred in full flight down the homestretch of a racetrack. Riders who have won thousands of races say the feeling never gets old, especially if they're in the lead approaching the wire.

For the comparatively few people in the world who have ever experienced it, the moment is difficult to describe. Many talk about the familiar wave of adrenaline that comes with riding in a race. Adrenaline makes the body light up like a Christmas tree, raising the heart rate, spiking the blood pressure, speeding the delivery of fuel to muscles, sharpening concentration, and brightening vision. The physical effects enhance emotions, creating shining moments of euphoria and invincibility rising with each stride as the horse surges toward the finish.

For some jockeys, part of the thrill is the partnership with the horse. In many ways, jockeys are solitary athletes, but in those moments, they meld with a mute creature to pursue the same goal amidst all-out physical exertion. Without words, the two can feel each other's emotions vibrating through the reins, communicating as though by a magic spell.

For many, the joy of riding a Thoroughbred on the track is finding silence in the noise. A good horse can outrun his rivals, but any horse can carry their rider away from the troubles that dogged them on the ground. Time in the saddle is time a rider can't afford to think about anything else, creating peace in a mind that may often be devoid of it.

These are the moments riders chase, fleeting ticks of a stopwatch for which they spend all day waiting. We see them in rain, heat, and snow, riding races in a dizzying rainbow of silks late into the night, on a rotating merry-go-round of gallopers in early morning light, forever straining to reach the winner's circle again.

What we don't see are the pressures they battle each day on the way there.

Multiple academic studies through the years have shown what racing fans have realized more clearly in recent months – the human athletes at the heart of the sport's most shining moments are, often, battling mental health challenges.

A 2019 study from the United Kingdom found 87 percent of the 15 jockeys surveyed had reported stress, anxiety or depression in the previous year; a different 2019 study in Ireland surveyed 42 jockeys, of whom 57 percent had symptoms of depression, 52 percent had stress symptoms, 38 percent had social phobia symptoms, 31 percent had self-esteem symptoms, and 21 had generalized anxiety symptoms. One 2020 Irish study of 84 riders pegged the rate of jockeys meeting the criteria for depression at 35 percent. According to The Racing Foundation in the UK, about one in five people in the general population experience a “common clinical mental health disorder” in the course of a year.

The life of a jockey has always been difficult, but the recent deaths of jockeys Avery Whisman and Alex Canchari by suicide have the racing industry asking itself tough questions about why it's so challenging – and who can help.

It's not if, it's when

As racing's elite gathered at Churchill Downs May 1, preparing to observe the post position draw for the 149^th Kentucky Derby, Spectacular Road stumbled in the first race at JACK Thistledown, some 350 miles away. The horse righted himself and continued on, but unseated jockey Mauro Cedillo, a 24-year-old whose injuries were so severe he was sedated and put on a ventilator in the intensive care unit at Cleveland's Metro Health Medical Center. Only in the hours after the Derby field crossed the wire did photos emerge of Cedillo that seemed more hopeful as he smiled from his hospital bed.

Management at Thistledown cancelled the remainder of the May 1 card, but it's not uncommon for jockeys to watch a colleague hit the dirt, be carted off on a backboard, and have to suit up for the next race.

“You've got to put it to the back of your head and hope that person is OK,” said Darius Thorpe, who rides at Charles Town. “You can't let it affect you. People will see it affects you and view you as being scared or think you'll pull a horse because of whatever you've just seen.”

The most common truism jockeys will tell you about their job is that it's not if they'll fall or if they'll get hurt, it's when and it's how badly. The other thing most jockeys will point out to someone outside the room is that theirs is the only sport in which an ambulance chases them around the field, ready to cart off broken bodies if needed.

“Get in your pajamas, get in the back of a pick-up truck on a dirt road and go 40 miles an hour, and jump out,” said Remi Bellocq, executive director of BCTC Equine, formerly the North American Racing Academy. “And then tell me how it feels. That's what it is to fall off a horse when you're going that fast.

“That's kind of an eye-opener for a lot of people.”

Terry “T.D.” Houghton has ridden races for 36 years – accumulating over 6,100 wins and seven surgeries. He can't keep track of how many bones he has broken on the track. If you count ribs, he says, he's probably up to twenty-something.

“One time I went down in a spill at Mountaineer and I punctured my lung,” he remembered. “I had a two-inch tear in my lung. I'd punctured a lung before and broken ribs several times. I'm lying there on the racetrack and the paramedic comes over and I told him, 'I've got broken ribs and one of my lungs has collapsed.' He said, 'How do you know that?' and I said, 'I know it.' He thought I was crazy.”

Houghton has two rods and six screws in his back, two plates and 17 pins in a shoulder, and ankle plates with pins on both sides. At one point, he tore his rotator cuff and was told surgery would take six months' recovery but that he could keep riding with the injury until the pain became untenable.

“For two years it really bothered me, and I don't know if I just got used to it or it quit bothering me,” Houghton said. “They said it wasn't going to heal on its own. To me, I can move it like I could before. The first two years, I couldn't. I had to change my whipping style because I couldn't lift my arm the same way. Now, it doesn't bother me.”

In the short term, those inevitable injuries are impactful, for more than just their pain. There's the expense, of course – worker's compensation programs in place for jockeys have caps in some states on what an injured rider may claim after an accident. That cap, even when it's as high as $1 million, can easily be surpassed before a rider leaves the hospital if their fall is a serious one.

Then there's the cash flow problem. Unlike many of their colleagues overseas who work on contract, American jockeys recovering from injury or illness earn nothing until they can get back into the starting gates.

Stacie Loveberry, wife of Kentucky Derby runner-up jockey Jareth Loveberry, recalled eating almost exclusively canned vegetables and ramen noodles for months after her husband had surgery on a shoulder that took him out of riding for six months. Backstretch communities will sometimes rally with an online fundraiser to help a jockey pay their bills while they sit on the sidelines, but these aren't guarantees that a battered rider can count on. The Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund can step in when a rider is permanently disabled, but as we've reported before, contributions to the Fund haven't kept pace with the need, and as a result it has to be strict in its allocation of resources.

Many riders will also tell you they have to worry about getting adequate medical care after a serious fall. Jockeys at tracks outside major metropolitan areas will often warn each other – especially apprentices and out-of-town riders who aren't familiar with the lay of the land — to request a longer trip in the ambulance to a better medical facility. Houghton recalled more than one incident where some of his injuries went undetected or poorly-treated at smaller hospitals that seemed overfaced by the trauma of a racing fall.

Then there are the long-term impacts. Because they aren't paid until they return to the saddle, many jockeys approach medical advice like a challenge. Can't walk again? Watch me ride. Sit out for six weeks? I'll make it back in three. Some of it probably comes down to their competitive nature, but a lot of it is necessity. For years, riders have made the decision themselves about when they're ready to ride after a fall.

“If you've got a concussion, you're not going to go find the doctor,” said Bellocq. “You're going to hide in the jockey's room or the bathroom because if they say you're unfit to ride, you're not going to get paid.”

Recovery from an injury is tough. Not only is there no money coming in, but their horses are running under competing riders in their place, and they can't even hit the gym like they used to. Far from just grounding them from flight, a lay-off makes still a person who's otherwise always moving, and adapting to that sudden and dramatic change can be its own struggle.

For a sport that reveres its history, racing can often have a poor long-term memory. When jockeys make it back to the track, they often have to re-establish themselves. Thorpe lost seven and a half months when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament while being pitched over a rail during a race.

“You go stir crazy,” said Thorpe. “Then you come back and feel like everybody forgets your name, and you've got to worry about people thinking, is he going to be able to walk right, is he going to be able to ride the same? You don't really know what people think, but you have to hope for the best and basically start over and prove yourself, let them know you haven't missed a step.”

Andre Ramgeet recalled coming back from a broken left shoulder similarly.

“When I came back, everybody's like, 'We just want to see how you're going to ride,'” he remembered. “The first couple races back I had the stick in my left hand all the way down the lane, and they kept saying they want to see how I ride. I'm like, 'I broke my left shoulder. I've got to know what else you want to see.'”

The premise of the 2021 film titled “Jockey” suggests that as they age, many riders feel those injuries every day, though the riders we spoke to for this story said they don't live with much chronic pain.

However, retired riders have made little secret of how long cognitive fallout from concussions can linger. Houghton suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2002 that was so severe, doctors were amazed he survived. He had to relearn to walk and speak, but even when he'd cleared those hurdles, he said some types of memory came back even slower. Names often eluded him, even names of people he'd known for years.

“Even now I still have trouble with some things,” he said. “Things don't click like they did before but things are mostly back to normal.”

Making weight

Jockeys are known to the outside world as diminutive people, and most casual viewers of the pageantry on Derby Day think little of the reason why. Jockeys have to be light, though not necessarily short.

“The majority of our lives during the race week is losing weight,” Thorpe said. “It's probably 60, 70 percent of our time, losing weight.

“I'm not going to say it's more mentally exhausting than everything else, but it definitely takes a toll on you after a while.”

The typical tacked weight for a journeyman in most places is now 118 pounds, but for apprentice riders just starting out who have a 10-pound weight allowance, that means they can only tack 108, including their equipment.

The extremes that even successful riders have gone to daily to make weight are well-documented. In her wildly-successful book titled “Seabiscuit: An American Legend”, author Laura Hillenbrand writes that in the 1920s and 1930s many jockeys got by eating no more than 600 calories a day. (For reference, a Big Mac is 563 calories.) John “Red” Pollard, the famed jockey of Seabiscuit, was said to have gone an entire year eating nothing but eggs, and in his jockey days, James “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons recalled eating only a leaf or two of lettuce for dinner in the evenings – after he'd set them in the windowsill to evaporate the water from them.

For most riders, all but the very luckiest, food intake becomes an obsession. Many confess to eating only one full meal a day, if that, in the evening after they've finished riding races. While you or I may compose a meal based on nutrient content or likelihood of converting to body fat, a working jockey has to do some extra mental math. Many consider not only the composition of the food they eat, but how much each forkful weighs as they slave to the authority of the scale.

The most fortunate riders (often the youngest and physically smallest) can make weight by eating light and exercising religiously. For everyone else, exercise can be less about fitness and more about sweat, as they run in sweatsuits or plastic bags to maximize fluid loss. Many riders use the sauna to sweat off as much as they can – some of them as much as seven pounds in a couple of hours. Others resort to laxatives or self-induced vomiting, called “flipping.” Still others have taken furosemide, which works by rapid dehydration, to enhance fluid loss.

“When you go to the hotbox to pull weight, that dehydrates you so much and then when you get out of there and you're riding, the only thing you can think about is getting something to drink, and then it seems like it's harder to get it off the next day,” said Houghton. “Some guys too they have to pull so much weight that it drains you, it knocks you down. You won't be as strong as you were before you went into the box, that's for sure. You're still strong enough and capable to ride a good race but when it comes down to it and you're going down the lane battling someone stronger who didn't have to pull the weight you did, they're going to out-finish you.”

T.C. Stevens became a jockey this year at age 38 after a career spent exercise riding, and said at the start of the Fair Grounds meet, he weighed 135 pounds, much of it muscle. He's gotten down to 116 gradually, shedding that muscle through calorie restriction with the help of an app on his phone.

His dinners consist of lean fish and steamed vegetables night after night. It can be hard, he admits, to look over at his son eating a hamburger while he surveys another plate of steamed greens. He allows himself one cheat day a week to help maintain discipline.

Stevens guzzles water, one to one and a half gallons a day, to offset the impacts of dehydration from the sweat box, but many riders just avoid drinking as best they can, even as their skin is still warm from the sauna. When jockeys feel devoid of energy, he says, they reach into their locker and grab a piece of candy, knowing they'll burn off the calories. The sugar will give them a short buzz and the candy itself won't show up much on the scale.

“I want this worse than I've ever wanted anything in my life,” Stevens said. “I want to be a jockey. The juice is worth the squeeze.”

Outside the context of racing, the degree of obsession jockeys must have to make weight is considered disordered eating – and it's daily life for most of them. One 2002 study found that 75 percent of jockeys engage in some kind of weight loss strategy, while a smaller study in 2014 found the rate to be 100 percent.

Persistent calorie and fluid deprivation takes a toll on the body, but it takes a toll on the mind, too. Even mild dehydration can have impacts on mood, energy level, and cognitive function. Caloric restriction, likewise, has been found to increase the likelihood of depression.

But that's not all jockeys are facing.

Social isolation

In late March, Stevens was frustrated. He'd gotten two mounts since hanging out his shingle as a jockey two weeks earlier, and he found himself alone in a Louisiana hotel room, tired and disheartened. He had shifted from Fair Grounds to Evangeline Downs in hopes of building a broader business base, but it wasn't working.

“They wouldn't let me breeze horses,” he said. “I was standing on the rail for a week and I knew people could see me. I couldn't get horses to breeze, let alone ride. I'm sitting in my hotel room, away from my family. I'm paying to stay in a hotel room, not making any money. My wife's stressed. I haven't seen her in five months. I put on Twitter, 'I quit, I'm going home.' Did I have an honest intention of quitting what I worked hard for? No, not really. But did I want people to see how very low I felt and give people a chance to come help me? Yes.”

The life of a jockey can be a lonely one. Some come from South or Central America knowing no one, far from their families. Others have to travel far from wives and children to chase opportunities, or move around the country with everyone in tow in an attempt to keep the family together.

Julie Ramgeet, who has been married to Andre Ramgeet for seven years, says that it's not just jockeys who make sacrifices en route to chasing another winning stretch run – it's the people at home, too. They're sounding boards, anchors, cheerleaders, and coaches, even when riders try not to bring too much of their work home.

“Don't grow up wanting to be a jockey's wife,” she cautioned. “That wasn't the goal. I fell into it because we share the love of the horse. … They aren't able to give you the attention that a normal wife would want. The 50/50 marriage, no. You make a choice to support their career and you absolutely take a backseat to that. It's hard. I struggle. I'm still trying to find a balance.”

Andre works horses in the morning at Charles Town, and has a few hours to catch up on sleep or spend time with the couple's three children before going back to the track at 5 p.m. and not returning until 12:30 a.m.

Ferrin Peterson launched her jockey career to much fanfare in 2018 while studying for a degree in veterinary medicine. She gets a lot of windshield time as she drives from her home near Lexington the 65 miles to Churchill Downs, then sometimes another 94 miles to Turfway Park, or 113 miles to Horseshoe Indianapolis, or perhaps back to Lexington again to work horses at a training center. When she needs to break up the time behind the wheel, she finds a trail along the route to sneak in a run.

“I've ridden two racetracks in the same day and I've breezed at three different racetracks in the morning and ridden at two in the afternoon,” she said. “If you're really ambitious and you just want to get all the opportunities you can, you can drive all over the place.”

None of that leaves much room for anything else.

Peterson said she's lucky, because although she doesn't have an agent, she has a good support system in her non-racing family and in Hall of Fame riders including Julie Krone, Pat Day, Steve Cauthen, Ramon Dominguez, and Chris McCarron. If she's feeling overwhelmed, she has people she can call to vent her frustrations or concerns with the job. Not everyone has that – but many jockeys are on an equally hectic schedule.

“Imagine that you haven't eaten a solid meal in a couple of days, you have to get up at four in the morning, drive from Lexington to Turfway to work horses, then drive back to The Thoroughbred Center to work horses, grab a PowerBar, drive back to Turfway for the races,” said Bellocq, another mentor of Peterson. “That kind of schedule, day in and day out, seven days a week, it takes a toll, especially on a young person.”

Bellocq says the schedule is more grueling for riders like Peterson who do their own agenting. Besides just being athletes, they have to be their own promoters, which doesn't come easily to everyone.

“You've got to go barn to barn and put on a show,” he said.

About the time trainers may be taking a break to grab a forbidden donut, jockeys have to try to talk their way into work, over and over. Bellocq said when you look at the ease of top riders on camera or in media interviews, it makes sense that they became successful – they were the riders who had the natural swagger to self-promote while they were on the way up the ladder.

Stevens said he's gotten some flak for those late-night tweets, but he stands by them. He uses social media as a release valve for these frustrations when he knows he needs one. He said it's brought him business – and he figures it's better than the alternative.

“I've put some things on social media that people have called me up and said you're ruining your career doing this stuff or you seem volatile when you do that,” he said. “The one thing I've said to them that has stopped everyone in their tracks is, imagine if Avery Whisman or Alex Canchari felt vulnerable enough to put on social media or in a text message how they were feeling. Don't you think someone may have rushed to them to help them?”

The post Not A Job But A Lifestyle: The Mental Health Challenges Facing Jockeys appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Kyle McDoniel has been named president and chief operating officer of Equibase Company LLC by the Equibase Management Committee, effective June 1, 2023. He succeeds Sal Sinatra, who resigned in July 2022. James L. Gagliano has acted as interim president since that time.

“Kyle will bring a fresh perspective to Equibase and the sport,” said Ian D. Highet, chairman of Equibase. “The management committee is confident that his extensive background within sports media and sports betting alongside his business development and strategic planning skills fit perfectly with Equibase's objectives.”

Most recently, McDoniel was vice president of U.S. Strategic Partnerships for Sportradar, where he led strategic planning, business development, and ongoing partnership management with U.S. league partners, including the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League, for official betting data and content, technical services, and global video rights.

McDoniel, a 25-year veteran in the sports industry, started his career with ESPN and led initiatives managing partnerships with major U.S. sports leagues and developing direct-to-consumer digital subscription products before transitioning into business development and strategic planning. He subsequently held roles as senior vice president of Strategy, Marketing and Partnerships and vice president of business development for FOX Sports and also served as global head of Sports Partnerships and Strategy for Yahoo Sports.

“Horse racing is a fantastic sport, and I look forward to joining the excellent Equibase team in Lexington, Kentucky, and establishing relationships with stakeholders across the industry,” said McDoniel. “My priorities will be to develop new business opportunities to enrich the sport and provide everyone from professional handicappers to casual fans and the media with the tools they need to get the most out of racing.”

Equibase Company is a partnership between subsidiaries of The Jockey Club and the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America and serves as the Thoroughbred industry's official database. Through its website and mobile applications, Equibase offers a comprehensive array of free statistical information as well as premium handicapping products and reports in support of the North American Thoroughbred racing industry. Additional information is available at equibase.com.

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