Thanks for the Memories
What New England racing fan doesn’t remember Jerry Bailey and Cigar winning the Massachusetts Handicap in 1995 and 1996? And what about Bailey on Arcangues in the 1993 Breeders’ Cup Classic? Lowell Sun racing correspondent Paul Daley writes about great moments from the retiring rider’s career in this week’s Sun column, reprinted with permission here.
It’s a tale often told that things happen in threes.
With Jerry Bailey’s announcement on Wednesday that he will end his riding career in the Sunshine Million races at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 28, the three greatest riders of our generation — Gary Stevens, Pat Day, and now Bailey — will have moved into different facets of the sport they so love within months of each other. Bailey and Stevens will be seen in the broadcasting end of the business while Day will remain immersed in his calling with the Racetrack Chaplaincy Program.
Rather than rehash Bailey’s career statistics, which were formidable enough even in 1995 to get him inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame, I prefer to remember vignettes from the career of the son of a dentist from Dallas, Texas, who turned 48 years old last August 29.
Perhaps we should have seen the end coming early in 2005 when Bailey, with racing writer Tom Pedulla, penned “Against The Odds: Riding for My Life,” in which he discusses not only his career, but, more importantly, how his alcoholism nearly ruined his marriage and career. Bailey has been sober since January 15, 1989. In hindsight, Bailey may have consciously or subconsciously made the decision to complete the book while still at the apex of his popularity, where he could reach a wider audience with his message.
In his early drinking days, Bailey became known as “the two-o’clock jock,” accepting mounts later on the card so he could sleep in the morning. In his first foray to Gulfstream Park from the Southwest, trainer Arnold Winnick told the young Bailey that he didn’t have to come early to exercise the horses on rainy days because he didn’t work his horses on muddy tracks. For several days, Bailey would crack the blinds of his Holiday Inn room located just off Gulfstream’s far turn, see the grass was wet, then go back to sleep. Finally, Winnick asked the rider his whereabouts during the morning hours? It seems Bailey had never heard of sprinkler systems in El Paso and just assumed the grass was always wet due to overnight rains.
Before he would hit bottom in 1989, Bailey was getting quite the reputation for everything except his riding. In the spring of 1982, just before the Keeneland meeting in Lexington, Ky., Bailey approached Doc Danner about becoming his agent. Danner was hesitant. “I heard you won’t work in the morning,” said Danner, “and you’ll try to steal my girl.” Danner took Bailey on as a client but lost his girl to another man, anyway.
In “Against The Odds,” Bailey makes the point that most riders have similar physical characteristics, that it’s the mental part of the game which separates the greats from the also-rans. That’s why, years from now, when we can judge this generation of riders with the benefit of a time separation, Jerry Bailey will absolutely be known as one of the best turf riders of all time. His ability to save ground, judge pace, and find the seam before others became aware, while saving something for the finish never ceased to amaze me. I think he enjoyed the challenge, more than anything.
Many bettors would complain that you could never get a price on a Bailey-ridden horse. Not so. One of my biggest handicapping scores occurred in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 6, 1993, when Bailey scored aboard Arcangues, paying $269.20, the largest payoff in Breeders’ Cup history to this day, while defeating runners such as Best Pal, Bertrando, Devil His Due, and Marquetry, among others.
I felt that Arcangues, who had back problems on the hilly European courses and had recently received acupuncture treatments, was primed to handle the flat dirt track at Santa Anita. Bailey nodded his head several times in the paddock as Fabre explained these things, including the race strategy, to his jockey that day. The only problem was that Bailey didn’t understand a word of French. He won anyway.
Finally, is there any New England racing fan who doesn’t remember Cigar and Bailey coming to, and winning, consecutive Massachusetts Handicaps in 1995 and 1996, the eighth and fifteenth races in Cigar’s sixteen race winning streak?
In the 1995 race, before 12,823 adoring fans, Cigar walked away with $650,000 because of a $500,000 Lloyds of London bonus negotiated by Suffolk Downs with American Specialty Underwriters of Woburn, Mass., paid if Cigar, or any horse, could win the Gulfstream Park Handicap, the Oaklawn Handicap, the Pimlico Special, and the Massachusetts Handicap, consecutively. Cigar, with Bailey aboard, accomplished the feat.
The following year, 22,000 people showed up to watch Cigar and Bailey take another $400,000 from the Suffolk coffers. Cigar had achieved cult status in the Bay State, receiving a state police escort from the Connecticut line to his Suffolk barn. Meanwhile, Bailey’s autograph session on Friday saw a line the length of the Suffolk grandstand. Bailey’s right arm was so tired it’s a good thing he didn’t need to use the whip on Cigar the next day when the raucous crowd lined the tarmac 20 people deep from the barn area to the paddock. They couldn’t get enough of Cigar and his proud jockey, Jerry Bailey.
When Cigar would win a race during the streak, Bailey would return to the barn later and give his favorite horse a peppermint as a reward from one friend to another.
Then, on August 10, 1996, the unthinkable happened. Cigar became, well, almost human. He lost to Dare and Go in the Pacific Classic, snapping the 16-race skein. Still, a disappointed Bailey dragged himself to the barn that night to give his buddy the peppermint for a job well done over 22 grueling months. Cigar refused the mint, almost like he knew he had lost and let his buddy down.
Jerry, you deserve that peppermint now. You’ve had one sweet career.
As the late entertainer Bob Hope would say, “Thanks for the memories.”
Copyright © 2006 by Paul Daley. Reprinted with permission of the author.
