The Days Of The Roses

It's unfair to make a comparison between a ballplayer hitting badly or not fielding well and a rider not winning any races. A ballplayer is depending solely upon himself. A rider, remember, has to have a horse along with him. The two of us have to come down there together. You don't see a football player drag some other guy with him over the goal line. If he did, and the guy he had to take with him didn't feel too good, do you think he'd score any touchdowns? Or a baseball player—what if he had to drag somebody else around the bases with him?

The premise in horse racing is that for any rider to win races he must have a horse that can run. What he does with that horse is his responsibility. But it's a teamwork thing. Sure, other sports involve teamwork, too. Take a doubles tennis match. Maybe one guy, individually, played better than the other three put together, but he could still be on the losing team if his partner wasn't any good. In a golf foursome you can shoot the best round and still get beat if your partner shoots a terrible round.

There are so many people a rider is dependent upon that his career is more insecure than that of most professional athletes. I wouldn't say that it's any harder physically than football, because football players take a beating. Fighters take a beating. Baseball players play a tough season, but they are still more dependent on themselves, although naturally there's a certain amount of teamwork involved. I'm talking about when they're running the bases or fielding the ball or when they're up at bat. Then they're on their own. What they show is their own ability, specifically.

Back when I became a jock 15 years ago I didn't like riding because I was insecure. Today, when I think about it, the word "like" is a poor word, because like implies that it's enjoyable and I don't consider this an enjoyable business, because I'm working. It's not a sport to me. It's just the same as if I had to get behind a typewriter and tap out letters for eight hours a day. Now, there are plenty of people who work in offices and you don't consider them enjoying typing. That is their work, their business. When I go to the racetrack, it's just the same as if I was going into an office and work. That's what I have to do.

I don't want anyone to think that I hate it, because I don't hate it. I don't dislike it. I'm doing it for a living. I'm doing it because this is what I'm capable of doing. This is what I'm good at, and this is what I want to do.

My social life, I think, is much different from that of most jockeys. The majority of them are married. I'm basically a loner. There are very few male friends that I pal around with. Maybe one or two, but I seldom go with a pack of guys, except if I want to play cards. I've always traveled alone or maybe with one other friend, and dated under the same conditions. Oh, I know what girls are. I guess I discovered them when I left home. Socially, I think the greatest thing in the world is to date a girl. This is what counteracts the business side and makes life worth living. I'm not married because I've never found any one girl that I felt I could just absolutely live with for the rest of my life. But I have to have a good social life. I mean, if I wasn't happy socially I couldn't possibly get up in the morning and go out to the racetrack and go to work. I enjoy the opposite sex, and I enjoy the people that I meet that I accept and that accept me. If I didn't have this, I would have no incentive to work.

I have always thought that a person should always try to make things better. The world is progressing, and you have to progress with it. I know that racing is a big business, but I think that it isn't progressing as much as it could. There are a whole lot of people's rights that have been infringed upon along the way. And not just mine. At the moment, I don't know what I'm going to do when I stop riding or when that will be. I've given some thought to going into television as a sports commentator. At the same time, I've thought about the possibility of becoming a racing official. But, to tell the truth, I just don't know whether racing is ready for me. I would need help to become a competent official, and sometimes I don't think I could possibly get any help. If you don't get any help, you're not going anywhere, because one person doesn't even make a dent. I don't know if I'm capable or whether I'm that much enchanted by the challenge.

When I quit the Jockeys' Guild I said I wasn't ever going to care about these problems again. Now, I wouldn't mind fighting any battle if the outcome would help the whole racing organization. But you're not guaranteed it will help, when the people you have to fight at the top don't want to be progressive or don't even try to act fair.

I'm not questioning the stewards' intelligence or the education that they've had, but being intelligent is only half their job. The other half is understanding the business of racing itself. I'm not saying that they're not trying to do their best, or that they're not basically honest, but what good is all that if they're wrong? Some stewards are vindictive as hell. People talk about me being arrogant. I know a couple of stewards who had to be trained the same place as a Gestapo agent, 'cause that's exactly how they act to a rider.

The paper work and bookwork involved in understanding the rules and regulations of racing can be handled by any intelligent person. I don't know all those things, and I would have to learn them. Where the stewards often fail is through a lack of knowledge of the actual horses—and this is a tremendously big part of racing. Stewards are entitled to make mistakes. It's no crime to make a mistake—but their crime is that they won't admit it, because they feel that would weaken their position. This isn't true. It would only strengthen their position, but you can't get them to see that. Authority used this way is not right. Have you ever heard of a rider getting 10 days and then having the 10 days rescinded? You mean to tell me in the whole history of racing that every jock that got 10 days was guilty? You mean to tell me that in all those suspensions the stewards were never wrong? My God! They're not perfect. They had to be wrong once or twice.