Page 111 - Speedhorse July 2018

Floyd winning the $86,155 Cherry Creek Futurity-G3 wire-to-wire at Arapahoe Park aboard Smokin Brown Eyes in 2010.
Q: Do you have other side jobs or work you do when the racing season slows?
A: I’m at the track all year. In Phoenix, they run eight months out of the year, so I’m off from May until the end of September. It allows my wife and I to go do things. I’m originally from Ponca City, Oklahoma. I was born, raised, and graduated high school there. I’ve still got family there to visit.
Q: Do you miss your days as a jockey?
A: I miss the financial side of it. You can name the hours you want to work or where you want
to go to ride. I miss that part, but I don’t miss the injuries. The first twenty years of riding I rarely got injured, but the last twenty-five years I had to pick and choose what I wanted to ride just to stay safe because of the way that the trainers were starting to evolve. A lot of the old-time trainers always knew what the horse was doing. They could tell you exactly what the horse was going to do. They knew how to get a horse sound. Whereas today, a lot of the trainers have assistant trainers that are doing some of that work. It’s the nature of the beast. No matter how many pre-race examinations they do on a horse, you’ll still have catastrophic break- downs. The main thing that keeps a jockey from getting hurt is not allowing for the adrenaline over- load when riding. If you feel something even a little weird with the horse, you need to pay attention and many times that will save you. I can remember
times where I was two or three jumps from the finish line and I felt something was off and I’m thinking, money wise, that I know this horse can go another jump or two and get this money, but they just shouldn’t. As long as a person stays aware when they’re riding, they can stay pretty safe.
Q: Which horse was your favorite as a jockey?
A: I was riding for a guy named Joe Thomas in a little town called Eureka, Kansas. He had
a horse called Shaky Embrujo. Embrujo means male-witch in Spanish. That was my favorite horse because I won a lot on that horse, and he was such a cool horse to ride. He would get in the starting gate, back up on the tailgate, and square himself up. Joe Thomas had a guy work- ing for him named Johnny Grizzard and he was great. I think he made this colt what he was. If it weren’t for Johnny, I don’t think this colt would have run like that. He would tell me everything about the horse. He’d tell what the horse would do on any day and what I should do. Everything he told me was true and would always work.
Q: Do you have a favorite horse?
A: My favorite horse is American Pharaoh from the Thoroughbreds and from the Quarter Horse it would probably be Mr Jess Perry. I hear people talk about Corona Cartel and those other sires, but Mr Jess Perry was my favorite.
Q: What are your thoughts on the future of the Quarter Horse racing industry?
A: I think it’s going to get bigger. I
love Quarter Horses, especially at Ruidoso where the best ones go. The horses are getting faster and faster. When I used to ride and a horse would run a ninety-eight or a ninety-nine speed index, it would be a top AAA. But now if you ride a really fast horse, they’re running way up in the hun- dreds. A lot of people are getting away from the foundation of the breed, and they’re lighter boned, which I think can sometimes cause catastrophic injuries. The horses can be too fast for those lighter bones. Whereas with the foundation breed like Easy Jet, they were the heavy boned workhorses, which saved a lot of them from breaking down. They would ride them and then
do other things during the week, which stretched and strengthened their tendons.
If they walked up and down hills working cattle, it would work different areas of their muscles and tendons to keep them strong and sound.
Q: What advice would you give to a young person entering the Quarter Horse racing industry?
A: Be vigilant, be fair with people, and be spiritual because without God, we wouldn’t be anywhere.
SPEEDHORSE, July 2018 109
THE BACKSIDE
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