Imagine going to work each day and being asked to crouch down on the hood of a car going 45 miles per hour. In addition, you are also equipped with a mechanism and asked to steer that car. There are no brakes. All you have is the steering mechanism and your hands. By the way, you also must weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 106-114 pounds. Whether this sounds like a job you would enjoy, or one that scares you badly, you now have an idea of what it is like to be a horseracing jockey.
Thoroughbred jockeys are pound-for-pound among the world’s strongest athletes. They must be able to guide a 1200 pound racehorse around a racetrack while steering clear of other horses, look for small holes in the pack that will allow them to vie for the lead, and have nerves of steel. The weight of a jockey is strictly monitored and regulated by racing commissions, and being overweight can end a jockey’s career. While most jockeys are able to maintain their weight in a healthy manner, some have struggled with eating disorders and other physical problems.
EZ Horse Betting Not-So-Fun Fact
Jockey Ron Turcotte guided the legendary Secretariat during his Triple Crown career. Many say that Secretariat was the greatest racehorse of all time, and Ron Turcotte was widely regarded as very important to Secretariat’s success. Today, Ron Turcotte rides a motorized wheelchair. In 1978, just five short years after riding Secretariat into the record books, Turcotte suffered an injury during a race at Belmont Park that left him a paraplegic. Ironically, the Belmont Park track was also the site of Turcotte’s greatest moment as a jockey when he completed the Triple Crown on Secretariat by an amazing 31 lengths.
Being a jockey is also one of the most dangerous jobs in the athletic world. Ask any jockey and they will tell you that injuries are a part of the game. It isn’t a matter of if they will get hurt, it is a matter of when. Every jockey at some point in their career will suffer a significant injury.
In this section of the EZ Horse Betting website you’ll find profiles of famous jockeys and some incredible jockey stories that will enhance your appreciation of jockeys as athletes and also of horseracing in general.
- Garrett Gomez
- Chantal Sutherland
- Gary Stevens
- George Woolf
- Corey Lanerie
- Russell Baze
- Isaac Burns Murphy
- Bill Hartack
- Victor Espinoza
- Jerry Bailey
- Julie Krone
- Corey Nakatani
- Joel Rosario
- Calvin Borel
- John Velazquez
- Mike Smith
- Javier Castellano
- Jose Lezcano
- Joe Talamo
- Laffit Pincay
- Maylan Studart
- Sir Barton’s
- Chris Antley
- Eddie Delahoussaye Jockey
- “Bill” Shoemaker
- Randy Romero
- Donna Barton Brothers
- Julien Leparoux – french Jockey
- Joe Bravo
- Angel Cordero
Related posts:
- People Behind the Scenes of Horse Racing
- Why Do Mexico And Central America Produce Many Good Jockeys?
- How Much Does a Jockey Earn per Race?
- Why Do They Weigh Jockeys Before The Race?
- Top 10 Jockeys In Australian Horse Racing
- How Much Money Do Horse Racers Make?
- French Jockey Savaged By Rival Horse During Race
- What Equipment is Used in Horse Racing?
What Separates Good Jockeys from Great Ones
The difference between a competent professional jockey and a genuinely great one is difficult to quantify but unmistakable to experienced observers. Competent riders execute their pre-race instructions reliably, avoid obvious errors, and give their mounts a fair chance to express their ability. Great riders do all of this and more — they read developing race situations in real time, make decisive adjustments when the pace or position of other horses deviates from the planned scenario, and produce horses’ maximum efforts at precisely the right moment rather than too early or too late.
This difference in situational intelligence — the ability to process complex, rapidly changing information and respond correctly under competitive pressure — is what produces the measurable performance differentials that betting statistics document between elite and average jockeys. A great jockey on a marginally inferior horse can outperform an average jockey on a slightly better horse in a significant proportion of competitive races, which is why jockey assessment deserves explicit weight in handicapping rather than being treated as a secondary consideration after form and class. For more on using jockey assessment in your handicapping, our articles on betting jockeys in horse racing and what are connections in horse racing cover the analytical framework. And our profiles of Angel Cordero and “Bill” Shoemaker illustrate elite jockeyship at its finest.