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Santos deserves our support Earnest jockey was unfairly implicated in Derby controversyPosted: Thursday May 15, 2003 3:57 PM
Early this week a group of reporters spoke with jockey Jose Santos at Belmont Park race track in New York. Santos stood under an overhang near the apron of the racing surface and answered questions. The inquisitors were all racing writers, people who know the sport (albeit to varying degrees) and who have known Santos for many years. It was a casual and loose exchange. The interview took place early Tuesday morning, at the close of a brutal time in Santos' life. Last Saturday morning a story in The Miami Herald had suggested that Santos might have carried an illegal device while riding Funny Cide to victory in the Kentucky Derby seven days earlier. The Herald's story included a comment from a Churchill Downs steward calling a photograph of Santos just past the finish line "suspicious." The details of Santos' initial explanation are well known. He told the paper something about what the Herald called a "cue ring," used to call "outriders." Nobody in racing had heard of a cue ring, and riders don't call outriders. The comments didn't make sense. Last Monday Santos was absolved of wrongdoing, and in the aftermath of the tempest some things became clear. For one, Santos wears a Q-Ray bracelet, not a cue ring. It's used to quell arthritis pain. As Santos explained all of this at Belmont on Tuesday morning, he spoke the word arthritis. Everybody in the small group of writers cracked up. Spoken in Santos' accented English (he was raised in Chile) the word arthritis sounds a great deal like the word outrider. As the writers laughed, Santos laughed, too. It was a warm moment, seeing a good man find humor in a situation that might have ruined him. Last weekend's controversy has passed. It never should have happened. The Herald practiced incredibly sloppy and unprofessional journalism and subjected Santos and his family to needless and painful scrutiny. But Santos got past it and moves on to this weekend's Preakness, where Funny Cide is the 7-5 favorite to take the second leg of the Triple Crown and move on to Belmont with a chance to do what no horse has done in 25 years. I spent time with Santos one day later, as he arrived to ride horses at Belmont. Jockeys live a very tough life. Theirs is as dangerous as any sport on the planet, sitting atop 1,200-pound animals running at 35 miles an hour in tight quarters. The risk of injury is huge. Beyond that, they have to fight every day with the scale, trying to keep their weight low enough to ride. The public can only guess at the difficulty of their travails. Santos learned to ride as a teenager in Chile. He took his tack to Colombia for six years and then to the United States, first in Florida in 1983 and then to New York. He has fought all of the jockey's demons and beaten most of them. After winning the Breeders' Cup Classic aboard 99-1 shot Volponi last October and then taking his first Kentucky Derby title astride Funny Cide, Santos appeared to be back near the top of the profession. He deserved much better than what was dropped at his feet last weekend. He deserved to celebrate the Derby with his wife, Rita, and their four children. He deserved the chance to prepare for the Preakness in peace. He didn't get any of this. Put your money where you think best on Saturday. But leave a place in your heart for Jose Santos. That much he surely deserves. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden covers horse racing for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment. |
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