Photo: Jockey Jerry Bailey gives a thumbs up as he rides Red Bullet to the winner's circle after winning the 125th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Saturday, May 20, 2000. (AP Photo/Roberto Borea)
May 7, 1995
Derby runner-up jockey from El Paso knows about winning big races
Bill Knight
El Paso Times
Jerry Bailey made an amazing run Saturday afternoon, whipping Tejano Run down the homestretch to a second-place finish in the Kentucky Derby.
It would have been a dramatic victory, but it would have been nothing unusual for the Coronado High graduate. He has won the Kentucky Derby before, along with the Preakness, the Belmont, the Breeder’s Classic and every major stakes race worth winning.
Since riding a horse called Fetch into the Sunland Park Race Track winner’s circle back in 1974, while still a high school student. Bailey has won more than 3,000 races.
He will return briefly to El Paso this week. He is to be inducted into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame Tuesday night. Later, this summer, on Aug. 7 in Saratoga, N.Y., Bailey will be inducted into the Horse Racing Hall of Fame.
It will be a special summer – especially if he can steer Tejano Run into the winner’s circle at the Preakness later this month or the Belmont in early June.
Sunland Park start
But Bailey will always remember that first victory. In fact, he has a blow-up picture from the winner’s circle in his New York home.
Longtime Sunland Park trainer Ike Danley gave him his first mounts.
“He galloped horses for me for a while,” Danley said.
“I finally put him up on one and he rode fourth. I had him on two others that day and he won both. In the next two weeks, he won me seven races. He was just a natural.”
Bailey’s father, James, is an El Paso dentist. He believes if he had stayed in Dallas, where Jerry was born, his son might never have become a famous jockey.
“If I’d stayed in Dallas instead of bringing my practice out here, it probably would never have happened,” James Bailey said. “He wouldn’t have had Sunland Park right there.
“It didn’t really surprise me that he became a jockey,” he added. “It was never that he loved horses … at least, not so much as you would think. I think he just saw it as a good way to make a living. He enjoyed the competition more than anything.
“No, I’m not surprised he made a career of it. But did I ever foresee him reaching this level? Never.”
Feel for horses
Bailey began galloping horses for a stable at Sunland Park. He went with the group to Denver for the summer, still galloping. But they would never give him the real ride, never let him climb aboard for a race.
But Danley said it was merely a matter of time.
“He worked horses perfectly,” Danley said. “He knew exactly how to take ‘em, exactly how fast they were going. After a workout, say five-eights of a mile, he’d tell you how fast the horse ran it and he’d be right there, not more than a second or two off either way; just a natural.”
Bailey rode at Sunland until he finished high school, then it was off the Hot Springs in Arkansas. And, from there, it was just up and up and up.
Big-time rider
In Florida one day last year, Bailey rode an amazing seven winners at Gulfstream Park, breaking a 21-year-old record.
In 1991, Bailey rode Hansel to victories in both the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, capturing two of the three legs of horse racing’s Triple Crown.
In 1993, Bailey rode Sea Hero to victory in the Kentucky Derby, saying at the time “it fulfilled my career.”
Now, at age 37, Bailey is still challenging for the biggest of titles. And he is a natural in more ways than one.
“He doesn’t have a single problem with his weight,” James Bailey said. “I know a lot of guys get driven out of the business or have to go to Europe. He eats a lot of pasta, but he doesn’t starve himself.”
Bailey also stays active in supporting his profession. He is serving his third term as president of the Jockeys Guild.
“You know, Jerry’s won a lot of cars over the years,” Danley said. “But he never keeps ‘em. He always gives ‘em to the guild, gets them to crippled jockeys.
“He’s not only one of the top riders, he’s also a very, very fine man.”
Trainer Shug McGaughey said, “He’s a good representative for the sport. He gets along with everybody, which is rare in this business.”
And he just keeps on riding, keeps on winning. He came up on a little short Saturday afternoon at Churchill Downs, but he could easily be right there at the Preakness in Baltimore or at the Belmont in New York.
It is just what he does, what he loves to do.
“There was nothing I wanted to do more,” he once said.
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