“You talk about a true champion, and I think I've known a few of them – I would put no one in any sport ahead of Jerry Bailey as a great competitor – and a real warrior in one of the toughest sports known to man.” -- George M. Steinbrenner, III “In the sport of kings, Jerry Bailey is the king of kings.” -- Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes

WITH SUZEE AND JUSTIN AFTER THE 1993 KY DERBY WIN ON SEA HERO. Photo by Barbara Livingston

Widely regarded as one of the premier jockeys ever to mount a thoroughbred, Jerry Bailey has claimed nearly all of racing’s most glittering prizes. He has won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont two times each, as well as a record fourteen Breeders’ Cup races. He has received the Eclipse Award as the nation’s top jockey an astounding seven out of the last nine years. A member of the Racing Hall of Fame since 1995, he holds the records for the most earnings in a year and most stakes wins in a season. A national spokesperson for the Breeders’ Cup, the Daily Racing Form, the New York Racing Association, and Pepsi-Cola, he has done commentary for ABC and ESPN.

Bailey battled to work his way up from teenage exercise rider and quarter horse jock to the Winner’s Circle at Churchill Downs and other storied tracks around the world. His toughest challenge, however, was to conquer the alcoholism that nearly destroyed him professionally and personally. With stunning honesty and arresting detail, Bailey traces his descent into misery, his inspiring recovery, and the magnificent racing achievements made possible by his sobriety, in AGAINST THE ODDS: Riding for My Life, Bailey tells his story in collaboration with Tom Pedulla, a sportswriter for USA Today.

As he sat in his first meeting in 1989 and learned about the twelve step program, Bailey wondered how he had ever become so sick. It had started innocently, when he set out on his riding career in 1974 at the up-for-anything age of seventeen. He drank at first to fit in, to experience the off-track camaraderie. Years later, when he realized he needed to stop, he felt powerless to do so. He got lost driving home on the night of his bachelor party before his wedding to wife, Suzee, a former sports reporter and actress. Amazingly, he continued to drink even with his jaw wired shut after a racing accident – though he kept a set of wire cutters close at hand in case he needed to vomit. He writes, “The world at large cannot imagine how a man widely declared to be the leading rider of his era, one of the greatest jockeys ever to break from the starting gate, could have handled a 1,200-pound thoroughbred with so much ease but have no control of himself.”

Being fired by a friend, one last terrible night of drunkenness, and Suzee’s threats to leave him prompted him to enter an outpatient rehab program. As he rebuilt his relationship with Suzee and recovered with her support, the couple was able to overcome infertility problems, allowing Suzee to give birth to their son, Justin. Bailey’s relationships with his father and sisters, whom he had kept at arm’s length ever since his mother’s death from breast cancer when he was still in high school, became closer than ever before. Comments from Suzee, other family members, friends, and colleagues are interspersed throughout the narrative, providing varied perspectives on Bailey’s recovery and career.

Before regaining his sobriety, Bailey was doing well and making good money, but he could not touch the top riders on their best days. That began to change quickly in recovery. Indeed, Bailey writes, “I am firmly convinced that if I had not hit bottom, I would never have been able to see my way to the top.” Bailey was finally able to put all of his natural and acquired assets – his enormous competitive drive, his physical and mental courage, his coordination and concentration, his ability to read a shifting pack of horses and riders in an instant and find a way through – fully in the service of his sport.

By 1991, with his first Breeders’ Cup victory, Bailey was “in the zone.” At last, his heart told him he could be great, because he had beaten the bottle. By 1993, when he won his first Kentucky Derby aboard Sea Hero, he was soaring to unimagined heights. Suzee Bailey describes how she watched that ride on television at home, where she was caring for their young son: When he started to make his move, splitting one group of horses after another, I knew everything was going his way and my heart started to beat faster. “Go, Jerry! Come on, Jerry! Come on, Jerry! Come on, Jerry!,” I shouted over and over. . . . we could barely hear the telecast as Sea Hero pounded home. I screamed, then cried for joy. I was so proud of Jerry and thankful for that outcome. I briefly thought of all that we would have missed if the right choices had not been made.

1993 KENTUCKY DERBY WIN ON SEA HERO Photo by Barbara Livingston

WITH CIGAR AFTER THE MASS CAP Photo by Barbara Livingston

Bailey’s most famous horse was the magnificent Cigar, whom he rode for sixteen straight major stakes wins in 1995-1996, matching the all-time record set by Citation. Bailey writes dramatically of his streak with Cigar, one of the very few horses he allowed himself to get emotionally attached to. There was a remarkable communication and trust between the two, which let Bailey know just how much Cigar had to give, how to ask him for it, when to hold him back, and when to let him go. Cigar won at tracks across the country, and even in the Dubai World Cup, but was ultimately defeated in his bid to set a new record. Bailey was devastated by the loss, but consoled himself with the thought that he had made the best possible decisions for Cigar. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS OF JERRY AND CIGAR

As president of the Jockeys’ Guild from 1989 to 1996, Bailey became an official advocate for improved health and safety standards in racing He championed the use of “flak jackets” that offer riders some protection in the event of a fall, and won modest improvements in health, accident, and life insurance for jockeys, which remain scandalously inadequate. In AGAINST THE ODDS, Bailey calls for additional changes in racing that would make it safer for horses and human beings and create new fans for a sport with a declining and aging audience, including:

• Leaving the Triple Crown alone. With Funny Cide falling short of the Triple Crown after winning the first two legs in 2003 and Smarty Jones narrowly missing by one length in 2004 to extend the longest drought in history, there has been increased talk that perhaps the format should be changed. Three races at different distances at different tracks in five weeks exerts enormous physical and mental pressure on still-developing three-year-olds. Some argue that perhaps the spacing between races should be increased while the distance of the 1½ -mile Belmont Stakes should be decreased. “In this case, I say don’t mess with history,” Bailey writes. “Let’s not tread on more than a century of tradition when it comes to the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Let the Triple Crown continue to stand for what it is – arguably the greatest accomplishment in all of sports.”

• Keeping an eye on race fixing. Bailey was once personally approached about fixing races early in his career, and turned the overture down flat. “In the last twenty years, however, I have not heard of or witnessed any instance of race fixing,” he writes. “For riders on major circuits, I cannot conceive of a fixer being able to pay enough money to make it worthwhile for a jockey to risk everything by stiffing a mount.” Moreover, Bailey dismisses as laughable the allegation that José Santos might have carried a buzzer when he urged Funny Cide to victory in the Kentucky Derby in 2003. “There must be eight television cameras and eighty still cameras focused on you at all times,” he writes. “A person would have to be insane to think he could carry an electrical device to stimulate a Derby horse and not be detected. Of course, José was exonerated.”

Bailey concludes by reflecting on the deep satisfaction he has derived in recent years, both from his hard-won professional achievements and the simple pleasures of family life – none of which would have been possible without his recovery. “I believe God put my wife and others in my path to help when I was at the bottom of my ocean,” he writes. “When all around me was darkness, they pointed toward a ray of light. Then it was up to me to kick as hard as I could. . . . Long after I end one of the most illustrious careers in racing history, it will never be in my nature to back off in any endeavor. I ride to win. I live to win.”

The frank, moving, and inspirational autobiography of the world’s greatest jockey, AGAINST THE ODDS is a story of failure and redemption, of addiction and recovery, of the making of a man as well as a champion. It is not only a compelling account of life inside the dazzling world of professional racing, but of one man’s victory over his greatest opponent of all – himself.