The first Saturday in May belongs to the soldiers from Lilliput.
They spend the rest of the year strong-arming 1,000-pound thoroughbreds into disappearing holes. They starve themselves. They don't make shortstop money. When they get hurt, ambulances are called. They are there in front of you at least four times a week, risking themselves at least eight times a day, in a game that only pays three finishers. At the end they catch hell from the drive-by bettors.
They are jockeys. Dr. Robert Kerlan famously called them the greatest athletes in sports. The Kentucky Derby is their day.
“I try to explain to people how gifted they are,” said Ron Anderson, the jockey agent. “They're the elite. It's like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. They weren't taught to do what they do, and they can't sit down and explain it to you.
“It's not an easy go. I had Jerry Bailey from 2000 to 2006. He was always very edgy. He wanted to win so bad. He retired and told me later that people didn't realize how hungry he was. For 20 years.”
Bailey now analyzes the races for NBC.
“The day after I retired, I planned it out with my son Justin,” Bailey said. “People asked me what I wanted and I said, 'Lunch.' That's what I missed the most, so I had a turkey pastrami at Two Jays in South Florida. It was awesome. So big, I couldn't even have dinner that night.”
Anderson talks of the “20 races with 20 different animals” in the Derby, and the “18 decisions” that Bailey had to make when he won with Grindstone in 1996.
“Every one of them was right,” Anderson said, “But sometimes you need a horse that's nimble and athletic enough to get in and out of situations, too.”
A jock also needs an agent who can play the probabilities, to find the right horse in the right race. That's where Anderson comes in. His jocks have won 15 Triple Crown races, including five Derbies, and 37 Breeders Cup events. On Saturday he'll have Joel Rosario on Rock Your World, and John Velazquez on Medina Spirit.
He had Bailey, Gary Stevens, Fernando Toro, Corey Nakatani, Chris Antley and Garrett Gomez and, until recently, Umberto Rispoli, who was riding Rock Your World.
Rosario was aiming for a Derby ride with Concert Tour, trained by Bob Baffert. But when Concert Tour ran poorly at the Arkansas Derby, Baffert steered him away from Louisville. That freed up Rosario for John Sadler, Rock Your World's trainer. Rosario and Sadler have teamed for 247 victories, 34 of them in graded stakes, and nearly $21 million. With Anderson as a conduit, Rosario is on Rock Your World Saturday and Rispoli is out, a decision that Sadler called “agonizing.”
“These are business situations,” Anderson said. “I remember what D. Wayne Lukas would tell riders who would win a race and want to get back on the horse: 'These are one-race contracts, my boy.' Harry Silbert was Willie Shoemaker's agent, and they worked for 36 years on a handshake.”
Agents only represent two jocks at a time. Velasquez had been the regular rider for Malathaat, the favorite in Friday's Kentucky Oaks for 3-year-old fillies. He was riding Medina Spirit for Baffert in the Santa Anita Derby (and losing to Rispoli and Rock Your World), so Rosario took over Malathaat and won the Ashland Stakes. When it came time for the Oaks, trainer Todd Pletcher reached back for Velasquez.
“Joel totally understood,” Anderson said.
It's a long way from Mt. San Antonio College, and Anderson's goal of attending UCLA law. But he was a racetrack regular, and agent Chick McClellan gave him Toro's account, and Toro became Anderson's racetrack professor.
“Ronnie is successful because he's smarter than anyone else,” Bailey said. “He's able to interpret the data from the numbers, speed numbers, patterns. If your agent is wrong, it can cost you a lot of money. Maybe $5,000 in an allowance race, but maybe a million in a big race.
“Some agents will say, what do you have for me? Ronnie has already done the homework and says, 'I want horses A, C and F in races 1, 6 and 9.'”
On Saturday Anderson will sit back and watch Rosario and Velazquez and the others become the biggest men in the world. On Sunday he'll bury himself in charts and numbers again.
All days means money to racetrack people, but Anderson knows and understands why one day matters more.
“You tell somebody you're in racing and the first thing they want to know is, did you win the Derby?” he said. “That's the one that lasts forever.”
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