When it comes to winning Breeders' Cup races, no rider does it better than “Big Money” Mike Smith. His 27 wins leads all jockeys and is seven wins better than runner-up John Velazquez.
With the Breeders' Cup quickly approaching, Smith sat down with the team at the TDN Writers' Room Podcast presented by Keeneland and took us on a trip down memory lane. The Hall of Famer was the Guest of the Week.
Of the 27 wins, is one his favorite?
“It would have to be Zenyatta [in the 2009 GI Breeders' Cup Classic],” he said. “That was a day that I think even other trainers that had horses in the race were rooting for her. It was crazy. It was just one of those special things. She was that good.”
How did he feel about losing the mount on GI California Crown winner Subsanador (Arg) (Fortify), who looked like a major threat for this year's Classic before being sidelined with a minor injury?
“He was just doing tremendous,” Smith. “And this Breeders' Cup will be run at Del Mar. When he trains there, he just loves that track, although he's never ran a race over it. His works over that race track are just phenomenal. He just floats over that track. And so I was so excited about going back there. But the good news is that is just a very minor injury. It requires no surgery. They're planning on running next year. That just means I'm going to ride another year.”
We also found out that Smith has been stretching the truth about his age all these years. He is listed at 59, but is actually 58. He fudged his age when he was a teenager so that he could start his riding career at 15.
“I'm 58 and was born in 1966,” he said. “When I first wanted to ride I wasn't quite old enough. I told them I was 16 and they let me ride. It just never changed. I've tried to change it several different times. But it's already been in the system that way. I was told to just leave it that way. It was too much trouble to change.”
He is known for his workout routine, which keeps him young and fit and able to beat jockeys more than half his age. What he does may sound grueling, but Smith said he wouldn't have it any other way.
“I guess maybe some people would want to slow down as they get older, but I'm not built that way,” he said. “I'm just kind of a different bird. I get up five days a week and I train and I work out hard. I feel like if I don't, I won't feel right. It is just a drug for me, I love going into the gym and working out and adding new routines and doing new things. I'm doing this balance stuff now that's got my legs so strong I feel like I'm a kid all over again. I just love it.”
Is he at least thinking about retirement?
“People are starting to use me again all of a sudden,” he said. “As long as I'm getting opportunities I will keep riding. I had a good week this week and I'm doing really well. I'm not showing my age and I still have my legs. I'm strong down the lane. I'm still working out every bit as hard as I was before and am still able to do it. If I stopped now, I would go nuts. If I retired I would feel like I'm just robbing myself of this great sport, something that I really love to do. I I enjoy riding right now just as much, if not more, than I ever have. I'm having fun. I love it when I can go out there at my age and beat these guys. It's a blast. As long as I'm riding the right horses, I can do that.”
In our breeding spotlight section we looked at the WinStar stallion Timberlake.
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders' Association, West Point Thoroughbreds, WinStar, XBTV.com, Darley America and 1/ST Racing, the team of Randy Moss, Zoe Cadman and Bill Finley congratulated Irad Ortiz Jr. on his 4,000th win, but predicted he will come nowhere close to breaking the record set by Russell Baze, who has 12,842 career wins. The reason is that there is much less racing now than there was in Baze's heyday.
The panel also brought up the fact that the GI Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and the GII Sands Point Stakes, both races on the turf for 3-year-old fillies, were run on the same day. With the foal crop as low as it is, getting big fields for stakes races grows harder by the year. Finley suggested that some races, like the Sands Point, should simply be put out to pasture.
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