Anderson, Former Agent and Friend, Remembers Gomez

The news of the unexpected death of former superstar jockey Garrett Gomez, 44, reverberated throughout the racing world Wednesday, with perhaps no one feeling the shock harder than Gomez's former agent and friend, Ron Anderson.

Starting in early 2006, Anderson had the book of Gomez throughout the pinnacle of his riding success, as the Tucson native reeled off a streak of four consecutive years atop the nationwide earnings list and earned Eclipse Outstanding Jockey awards in 2007 and 2008. Gomez also finished fourth in purse money earned in 2010, a little over $1.2 million behind leader Ramon Dominguez, despite riding 674 fewer races than Dominguez that year.

Anderson had previously represented Hall of Fame jockeys Gary Stevens and Jerry Bailey, and when Bailey retired in January 2006, Anderson found himself without a big ticket rider. That's when he received a phone call from a California area code.

“I got kind of an obscure call from Julio Canani and he didn't even announce what was going on,” Anderson recalled. “He just said, 'There's somebody here that you need to speak to,' and he handed the phone to somebody, and it was Garrett. Garrett said, 'Would you consider coming back [to California] to work for me?' I said, 'I'll be on the next plane if you want to put me to work.'”

The partnership began in March, and Anderson quickly recognized in the ascendant Gomez the kind of greatness he experienced with Bailey and Stevens.

“Right away, I realized the guy was just magical,” he recalled. “I hadn't watched him specifically, because I was on the East Coast and I didn't watch all the California racing. I knew he had quite a bit of success going on and was on the upswing, but I really hadn't watched him. I just realized right away, this kid is really, really good. Horses ran for him, he was super, super good at being in the right spots and was one of the best finishers ever.”

The biggest win of Gomez's career came in the unforgettable 2010 GI Breeders' Cup Classic, when he piloted Blame (Arch) to an upset of undefeated champion Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}) at Churchill Downs. Two days prior to that effort, Gomez took a bad fall and suffered a crack in his shoulder, an injury unbeknownst to nearly everyone besides Gomez and Anderson at the time.

“He couldn't lift his arm past about his chest level,” Anderson explained. “He didn't tell anybody, even the doctor. The x-rays came up later that he had cracked it. He had considered taking off because he was in so much pain. He went back to the sleep room, took a couple of Motrin and said at the time, 'If I walk out of that room and I feel like I do now, I'm going to have to take off this horse.' He just bit the bullet and ended up riding. It's mind-boggling that he won.”

Gomez and Anderson parted ways in 2012, when Anderson wanted to come back east in the spring while Gomez wanted to stay in California. A year later, Gomez, who had struggled with substance abuse before becoming sober in 2003, relapsed, and his riding career dissipated. He faded from the public eye and officially announced his retirement in June 2015 on Facebook. Anderson says he tried to contact his former client over the past few years, with little response.

“I reached out to him a number of times,” he related. “He never returned any of the texts except when his mother passed away, and he texted back 'thanks.' That's the only correspondence I'd had with him. He obviously went somewhere that he didn't want to be contacted.”

While most racing fans and outsiders will remember Gomez mainly for his immense riding ability, the bigger picture coming into focus is that of a kind, but troubled soul who happened to find his calling as a great jockey.

“He's going to be known and remembered as one of the elite and best riders ever, I believe,” Anderson concluded. “And then off the racetrack, he had a real nice way to him, he liked people and was very appreciative to everything and everybody. At the end of the day, he was a really good guy who didn't have a mean bone in his body. It's very sad.”