| Many sports rival it, but you'd be hard pressed to | | | | less common among jockeys, but consider Stewart |
| name any competitive human activity harder than | | | | Elliott (1965-), a champion Canadian jockey whose |
| being a jockey. There's the food deprivation - the | | | | father was a jockey and whose mother gave riding |
| constant training - the danger, even likelihood, of | | | | instructions. Years of hard work and solid track |
| bone-crushing accidents. No wonder that of all athletes, | | | | performances (many of them at the Philadelphia Park |
| jockeys face some of the highest insurance premium | | | | Racetrack) paid off when, in his first Kentucky Derby |
| costs in sports. | | | | in 2004, riding Smarty Jones, he won the first rider in |
| And though Laura Hillenbrand's bestseller Seabiscuit | | | | twenty-five years to do so. (This victory yielded him a |
| spotlighted the hardships faced by the jockeys of | | | | payday of $60,000 - the largest for any jockey in |
| prewar times, the life of a jockey remains as tough, | | | | history.) A Preakness victory two weeks later took |
| dramatic, and - for some - irresistible as ever. Herein, | | | | Elliott and Smarty Jones to within shouting distance of |
| some of America's great contemporary Thoroughbred | | | | the Triple Crown, but a too-early backstretch kick led |
| horse racers. | | | | to a heartbreaking Belmont loss to Birdstone. But it's |
| Julie Krone (1963-) made racing history when, in 1993, | | | | hard to derail a consistent performer for long. |
| she became the first woman winner of a Triple Crown | | | | Kent Desormeaux (1970-) learned to love horses while |
| race in US history, taking that year's Belmont Stakes | | | | growing up on a farm in Maurice, Louisiana, beginning |
| aback Colonial Affair. The Benton Harbor, | | | | his racing career as an apprentice jockey in Lafayette. |
| Michigan-born athlete then wrote another chapter in | | | | His first victory came at the age of 16, in 1986, when |
| that history when she executed a Michael Jordan-style | | | | he took Godbey to victory in the Maryland City |
| dominate-then-retire-then-return-and-dominate-again | | | | Handicap. |
| maneuver, winning a Breeder's Cup race (again, the | | | | What has followed is one of the most impressive |
| only woman to do so) after she returned from an | | | | careers in modern racing history - Desormeaux holds |
| abortive retirement in 2002. During her career, Krone | | | | the US record for the greatest number of races won |
| won over 17% of her races, netted more than $90 | | | | in a single year. In 1989, his annus mirabilis, Desormeaux |
| million in returns, and left her name in the record books | | | | set that record by winning 598 - five hundred |
| a number of times. | | | | ninety-eight - races. A severe accident in 1992 |
| But numbers don't capture the extent of the | | | | fractured his skull and left him deaf in one ear, but he |
| achievement of a woman who, after all, faced not only | | | | still managed to win the Breeders' Cup Turf Race in |
| the hurdles blocking any would-be jockey from | | | | 1993 and a second Breeders' Cup title in 1995 (riding |
| achievement, but also the hostility that so often comes | | | | the filly Desert Stormer). |
| with being a strong woman in a male-dominated field. | | | | Finally, there's Marlon St. Julien (1972-), who joined this |
| For example, she once had to pose for a victory | | | | esteemed list by riding in the 126th Kentucky Derby - |
| photo while blood dripped from her ear - a fellow | | | | the first African American to do so since 1921, by |
| jockey (who wanted to keep the field restricted to, | | | | which time white racism and black migration north had |
| literally, "fellows") had lashed her during the race. (She | | | | reduced the African American presence in the Derby |
| bloodied his nose.) She nearly died after an accident at | | | | from dominant to negligible. The Lafayette, Louisiana |
| Saratoga in 1993 (the same year as her storied | | | | rider got a late start in horse racing - he had been a |
| Belmont victory), then broke both hands in a 1995 spill. | | | | footballer, perhaps the least likely former career of any |
| But she fought on-all the way to another first: the Hall | | | | jockey ever - but turned his interest to the sport after |
| of Fame inducted her in 2000. | | | | his eleventh-grade year. He emerged from a tragic |
| All Thoroughbred horses are closely related (hence the | | | | five-horse accident which - among other things - broke |
| name Thoroughbred), and some great horses, such as | | | | his sternum to ride races all over American, including |
| Man O'War, have given issue to great progeny (such | | | | the 1997 inaugural season at Lone Star Park and at |
| as Seabiscuit), even siring dynasties. Such a scenario is | | | | the Fair Grounds in Louisiana. |