Our questions are answered by the legendary seven-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey whose name will forever be synonymous with the great Cigar
Seven-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey Jerry Bailey is widely regarded as one of the greatest of riders of all time. Bailey had ridden 5,893 North American winners by the time he retired in 2006 – among them six Triple Crown races (including the Kentucky Derby twice) and 15 Breeders’ Cup winners, five of them in the Classic.
Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995, he topped the US standings by earnings six times and gained worldwide renown for his accomplishments on the great Cigar, whom he partnered to victory in the first running of the Dubai World Cup as part of a legendary 16-race win streak.
Bailey went on to win that race four times and when Frankie Dettori was seriously injured in a plane crash, it was to Bailey that Sheikh Mohammed turned to ride Dubai Millennium to victory in the 2000 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.
After hanging up his saddle he moved seamlessly into broadcasting, and the 67-year-old is now the hugely respected lead racing analyst for the NBC Sports team.
Which racing figure past or present do you most admire?
This was very difficult. In general it’s going to be Coolmore but if I had to make it more specific I would say John Magnier.
The reason I say Coolmore is because I think it takes the vision of John Magnier, the brilliance of Aidan O’Brien and the willingness to step up and take risks of all the others, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, and all the major players and their partners.
Over the last 30 years they have been brilliant; they will support our international races regardless of whether they think they can win or not. A lot of people in America won’t run if they can’t win. They don’t want to sully the image of their horses but the Coolmore partners are sports people. They want to participate and I give them huge credit for that.
Which is your favorite venue, and race, anywhere in the world?
My favorite venue is Saratoga. Any time you are very successful at a place it becomes your favorite and I had a lot of success at Saratoga but also it has world-class racing with the best jockeys, trainers, owners in a very country fair-like atmosphere which makes it unique.
For me the favorite race would be the Dubai World Cup, though it’s a slim lead over the Kentucky Derby. It was the closest I could come to being an Olympian, wearing the red, white and blue silks of Allen Paulson riding Cigar in the inaugural Dubai World Cup. To me, there was nothing better.
Who is your favorite racehorse and why?
That would be Cigar because of how good he was, how unbeatable he was for an extended period of time. It was very rare that I would ride the same horse more than two or three times in their career because I was always looking for the next best opportunity in any given race, and it’s hard for horses to stay that good for an extended period of time.
To ride a horse 17 straight times is pretty rare but because he was as good as he was, it was a no-brainer for me. The funny thing was in the first race of his 1995 campaign I was going to be faced with a choice, because I won the Classic in 1994 on Concern. They were both going to run at Oaklawn Park but the trainer of Concern did me a favor and moved me, knowing there would be a conflict, and left me free to ride Cigar.
What is your fondest memory in racing?
My first Kentucky Derby win on Sea Hero due to the nature of the race and how special it is.
The Kentucky Derby defines us as jockeys. I had the luckiest trip a jockey could have. I got through every opportunity there was. A hole would open for me two or three different times during the course of the race and when it was clear in the stretch that I was going to win, the first thought that entered my head was that I’d told my wife to stay home as I didn’t have much of a chance.
Our son was maybe six months old and it’s a crazy day and I said, “This horse doesn’t have much chance to win. Why bother yourself?”
It’s so hard to win that race and I never knew if I would have another opportunity. Three years later I won it again on Grindstone and she was there. That got me off the hook.
If you could change one thing in racing, what would it be?
If we could make a national commissioner for US racing that has some authority, some teeth – that is the one thing I would want to have happen.
If you look at football, basketball and even baseball, those sports have gone through the ceiling in terms of success and they all have a commissioner that does what’s right for the sport and elevates it by their decisions.
In America every state jurisdiction does what’s best for them, regardless of how it affects racing as a whole. HISA is doing a good job at trying to get rid of drugs and it’s a slow process, but if you had a commissioner he or she could attack every problem that we have.
Jerry Bailey was speaking to Jon Lees
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