Bailey Passes Cordero For Spa Win Mark
By Francis LaBelle, Jr.
Aug 6, 2004
Courtesy of the Dailey Racing Form

Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey became Saratoga Race Course’s all-time leading rider Friday afternoon, when Mike G. Rutherford’s Taittinger Rose won the third race to give Bailey 641 career winners at the Spa. The record was determined by joint research by Equibase and the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, spanning the years 1930-2003.

Earlier, Bailey won the first race of the day aboard Seaside Salute ($6) for trainer Billy Turner to tie fellow Hall of Famer Angel Cordero Jr.’s previous record of 640 Saratoga winners. Bailey then rode his third winner of the day with favored Aspen Gal ($5) in the seventh for victory 642.

Bailey was nosed out of his fourth winner in the day’s featured Honorable Miss Handicap on 5-2 Ebony Breeze by 14-1 My Trusty Cat and Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day.

“ I don’t know exactly what it means at this point,” Bailey said after breaking the record. “I’m sure that two, three or four years from now, it will sink in more. I do know one thing: Angel was probably the best rider I rode with, day in and day out. I can’t see he’s the best rider I rode with because I rode with Lafitt (Pincay Jr.) and (Bill) Shoemaker. It’s quite a compliment to top what Angel did. As good as he was everywhere else, he was that much better and that much tougher here.”

Over the years, Bailey was also tough at Saratoga. Although he rode for many different trainers, Bailey got huge support from Hall of Famers MacKenzie Miller, Bill Mott, D. Wayne Lukas and Bobby Frankel during his career. Appropriately enough, Taittinger Rose, who paid $6.30, is trained by Mott.

“You have to start with good horses, and I have been fortunate enough to ride for trainers that won a lot, Bill Mott being one of them,” Bailey said. “I think it is probably fitting that I won on his horse because he has been responsible for a huge portion of my wins up here. You have to come in here and be aggressive. It’s a type of track that rewards aggressiveness. The New York fans are great in general, but they have an extra enthusiasm here at Saratoga I think you get more positive energy here.”

Bailey thanked all of his agents -- Chuck Sherman, Bill Shuman, Jesse Parsons, Doc Danner, John Dale, Bob Frieze and Ron Anderson - as well as his biggest supporters, his wife, Suzee, and son, Justin. He also recognized the fans and Cordero.

“Angel has been great about this,” Bailey said. “It is a honor to go by a guy like him."

JOCKEY JERRY BAILEY RETURNS TO RACING THURSDAY AT BELMONT PARK

Armonk, NY – October 12, 2004- Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey will be listed on the Belmont Park's Thursday afternoon racecard after a brief hiatus to heal a broken wrist.

Bailey has been working horses in the mornings at Belmont since last Wednesday. He will race at Belmont on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, in addition to riding at Keeneland Racecourse on Saturday.

"I feel great and am riding with no pain," stated Bailey. "It may take a couple of races to knock the rust off, but I am resuming my normal race schedule immediately”.

Bailey broke his left wrist in a fall from a ladder while preparing his Ft Lauderdale, Fla. home for Hurricane Francis in late August.

Last year was a record-breaking year for Bailey. He won his seventh (fourth consecutive) Eclipse Award for Jockey of the Year, broke the North American record for purse earnings won with $23,354,960 and broke the record for the most stakes wins with 70.

On August 6, 2004, Bailey became Saratoga Race Track's all-time leading rider with 641 total victories. At the time of his accidnet, Bailey was the nation’s leading rider by earnings.

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Back in the saddle: top jock Jerry Bailey is on the mend

By SHERRY ROSS

New York Daily News
NEW YORK – October 12, 2004 - Jerry Bailey has spent a lifetime perched over the back of half-ton animals traveling at 40 m.p.h., and finding openings between full-tilt galloping horses that Lara Flynn Boyle would have a tough time squeezing through.

A little thing like a screw and a 12-foot ladder that wasn't going try to bite, kick, or stomp him seemed like such an insignificant threat.

One of the most successful jockeys of all time met his match, though, when he fell from a ladder as he was trying to protect his Florida home from the approach of Hurricane Frances on Sept. 1, and fractured his left wrist. This is the longest injury-related layoff the 47-year-old Bailey has endured in almost 20 years.

"I'm a pretty handy guy," Bailey says. "I've done things that are way more dangerous than this. On the roof, and stuff where I thought at the time, 'I shouldn't be doing this.' This wasn't one of those times."
After news of the injury spread, people wondered why Bailey (career purse earnings of over $280 million) hadn't paid someone to do the work for him, but as trainer Bobby Frankel says, "Would you hire someone to come over a change a light bulb?" The task seemed just that simple to Bailey.
"The only part of my house that I needed any hurricane shutters for was the front door," says Bailey, who lives with his wife, Suzee, and 11-year-old son Justin in Davie, not far from Gulfstream Park. "There are screws in the house itself around the framing of the door. You have to take the screws out, put the shutters on, and put the screws back in.

"One of the screws at the very, very top wouldn't come out, and I was at the top of a 12-foot ladder," he says. "I'm pulling and pulling and finally the screw comes out. It was like pulling on a rope and having the guy at the other end let go. I lost my balance and my father-in-law was holding the ladder and tried to catch me. I was going to jump over and land on my feet but I got tangled up and fell head-down, and naturally the first thing you do is try to put out your hands to brace yourself. It wasn't on grass, it was on marble, and I knew right away I was hurt.

"The funny thing was, an hour after this happened, the guy who built the house called and said, 'I know that front door can be a pain to put the shutters on so I'll send a guy over,'" Bailey says. "It was too late for me."

At least Bailey's home didn't suffer any damage after the storm. His career will probably also escape unscathed.

Bailey plans to resume galloping horses about two weeks before the Oct. 30 Breeders' Cup, racing's single richest day, at Lone Star Park near Dallas. About a week before the BC, Bailey hopes to be riding competitively to get his timing and conditioning back.

"I had some screws put in so I could start therapy quicker," Bailey says. "It was only 10 days after the cast was put on that they took it off and I started therapy. It was a pretty aggressive schedule. The doctor didn't see any reason that I couldn't be back in the time frame I laid out."

Bailey has won a record 14 Breeders' Cup races, including the marquee event, the Classic, four times. This year he will be on one of the likely favorites in the Classic, Pleasantly Perfect. It's an assignment he picked up, ironically enough, after an injury to Alex Solis, the regular rider of the defending Classic winner.

Because Bailey has been out of commission for a number of the key BC prep races, he isn't certain yet of what other mounts may come his way.

"It's never a good time for an injury," says Bailey, whose last prolonged absence due to injury was in 1985, after he broke three vertebrae, three ribs, and his foot in a spill in the Fall Highweight Handicap at Belmont, and recovered just in time to walk down the aisle in his wedding to Suzee. "This is an especially lucrative time of the year, but as a matter of fact, I've really enjoyed being with my son and my wife," he says. "I've come to the point in my life where I'm not going to beat myself up over what I should or shouldn't have done. That's why they call them accidents."

One of Bailey's most famous BC moments could also be considered an accident - a lucky one. In the 1993 Classic at Santa Anita, Bailey was given a leg up on a longshot from France named Arcangues. After receiving minimal instructions from trainer Andre Fabre, Bailey and Arcangues became the answer to a trivia question as the longest-priced winner ($269.20) in BC history.

On Tuesday, Bailey will be in town to be honored (along with fellow world-class athletes, including Mia Hamm and Barry Sanders) at the Great Sports Legends Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, a fund-raiser for the The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis/Buoniconti Fund. Bailey and his wife actively support many charities, and Bailey (along with many fellow jockeys) has pledged to donate a portion of his Breeders' Cup day earnings to help fund the medical bills for paralyzed jockey Gary Birzer.

While still relatively healthy, home repair accidents aside, Bailey has already flirted with the idea that this year, or possibly the next, would be his last as a competitive rider.

"I've done a lot of preparation in the last six months for life after active riding," he says. "Not knowing the definitive time line, I'm just trying to put things in order the best I can. I've thought about it at length the last two weeks. I think at the end of this situation, when I do go back to riding, I'll have a very good idea of do I want to stop anytime soon or not."

If that's the case, Bailey's swan song couldn't take place in a better setting than the first Breeders' Cup in his native Texas - unless it's at next year's Breeders' Cup at Belmont Park.

"I'm a transplanted Texan. I like to think of myself as a New Yorker," says Bailey, who has been a fixture on the New York circuit since 1982. "Either place would be a fun place to have my last Breeders'

June 1, 2004

JOCKEY WHO HOPES TO SPOIL "SMARTY JONES'" BID FOR THE TRIPLE CROWN SAYS HE WANTS TO "WALK OUT OF THE GAME IN ONE PIECE" -- WEDNESDAY ON "60 MINUTES II" ON CBS

To some, Jerry Bailey has it all: He's made millions of dollars doing what he loves and has earned countless awards and accolades, including being named Jockey of the Year seven times, winning 13 Breeder's Cups and six Triple Crown victories. Despite his success as a jockey, Bailey tells 60 MINUTES II correspondent Charlie Rose that winning is no longer the only thing on his mind. Bailey says, "To walk out of the game in one piece, I think, and it's not an easy thing to do."
Bailey, who has broken several bones, including three cracked vertebrae and a broken jaw, tells Rose that next season may be his last. "Some guys go in and come out in wheelchairs, so you know, in the grand scheme of things, the winning's great and God knows I've had my share, but when it's all over, I hope I'm still just in one piece."

The millionaire jockey also discusses his bout with alcoholism in the interview with Rose, which will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES II Wednesday, June 2 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Josh Howard is the executive producer of 60 MINUTES II and Alan Weisman is the producer of this report.

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Hall Of Fame Jockey Jerry Bailey Breaks
North American Stakes Record

Ozone Park, NY- November 29, 2003 - Hall of Fame Jockey, Jerry Bailey broke the North American record for most stakes wins in a single season while galloping Read The Footnotes to victory in the 1 1/8 mile Remsen Stakes, a $200,000 Grade II race at historic Aqueduct race track in New York. By the end of the day, Bailey, 46, had set a new mark of 70 stakes victories, and his mounts had earned over a record-breaking $23 million for the year.

"This has been an incredible day for me," said Bailey when asked about breaking the stakes record. "I am very proud to have broken another record but am relieved that it is over. There has been a lot of media attention focused on breaking this record. I want to thank all of the owners and trainers that have given me such great mounts to ride and my agent, Ron Anderson for doing such a wonderful job."

Bailey was one victory shy of tying Mike Smith's 1994 single-year record of 68 stakes victories going into today's race card. His victory aboard Ashado in the 1 1/8 mile $200,000 Grade II Demoiselle Stakes tied the record held by friend and fellow jockey Smith. This set Bailey up in the perfect position to break the record in the next two stakes races. In an incredibly exciting race in the Demoiselle, Bailey ended the race in a photo finish with a hard-fought win over La Reina ridden by John Velazquez.

The victory aboard Ashado put Bailey in position to break the North American record while riding Read the Footnotes in the Remsen Stakes. This race proved to be the tiebreaker as Bailey sailed to a 3 ¼ length victory over Master David ridden by Jose Santos.

The premier race of the day was the $350,000 Grade l Cigar Mile. Bailey was on the heavily favored Bob Baffert-trained Congaree. Congaree was a four-time Grade I winner, earner of $3 million and was 3 for 4 at the mile distance going into today's race. He won last year's Cigar Mile by 3 ½ lengths.

In picture perfect style, Bailey made his signature move going into the stretch and defeated the highly regarded Midas Eyes and John Velazquez by a 5 ¼ lengths. The victory put Congaree's record at 4 for 4 at Aqueduct and gave him back to back wins in the Cigar Mile. In a pleasant twist of fate, Bailey was the great Cigar's regular rider, and it seems fitting that the race named in the horse's honor, the Cigar Mile, helped Bailey smash the all-time stakes record.

Bailey is traveling to Los Angeles, CA this evening where he will ride in two stakes races at Hollywood Park tomorrow.

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Monday, December 2, 2002
Jockey Jerry Bailey breaks North American single season earnings record
Jockey Jerry Bailey broke his own North American single season earnings record with a third-place finish at Hollywood Park over the weekend.

The Hall of Fame rider was third aboard Royal Gem in Sunday's Hollywood Derby, and the $60,000 US earned boosted Bailey's total to $19,032,509 US ($29,643,000 Cdn), according to Equibase Company LLC, thoroughbred racing's official database for statistics.

Through Sunday, Bailey had 209 victories from 822 starts in North America.

Bailey broke his previous mark of $19,015,720 US set in 2001.

In the training ranks, Bobby Frankel is close to topping D. Wayne Lukas' earnings record of $17,842,358 US set in 1988. Through Sunday's races, Frankel's horses have earned $17,345,428 US.

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