Page 84 - December 2015

“Receiving the Sam Thompson Memorial Jockey award... is by far the accomplishment I am most proud of in my riding career.”
cody Jensen
by Michael Compton
For jockey Cody Jensen, there are some things that are more important than wins on the racetrack. While he has plenty of those—more
than 1,500 of them through mid-October with more than $32 million in purse earnings to boot— Jensen was named the 2014 recipient of the Sam Thompson Memorial Jockey Award, an honor that means the world to one of American Quarter Horse Racing’s top riders.
Created by Speedhorse magazine in conjunction with The Jockeys’ Guild, the Sam Thompson award, named for the late jockey who suffered a fatal riding accident in 2008, is a peer-elected honor, voted on by active jockeys. Honorees are chosen based on their character on and off the racetrack.
Jensen’s accolades are many. He is just the third rider in history to have won the All American Futurity two years in a row. He was the Champion Jockey in back-to-back years in 2013 and 2014, and he has scaled a virtual who’s who of racing greats, including the likes of Teller Cartel, No Secrets Here, Wicked Courage, Houdini, Inseperable, and Catchmeinyourdreams, to name but a few.
A native of Providence, Utah, Jensen was injured in a training accident at Ruidoso Downs in June. He has fashioned a reputation for bouncing back from injury during his storied career, and he visited with Speedhorse recently to reflect on his rise to the top of the jockey ranks.
WHAT TYPE OF MINDSET IS REQUIRED TO BE A JOCKEY?
I think I’m lucky. I’ve been injured quite a bit in my career and I understand that I put my body at risk every time I crawl on the back of a horse, whether
it’s in the morning, afternoon or at night; going full speed, going slow, walking. I’ve even been kicked by
a horse that broke my jaw standing still. To me, I’m lucky because I don’t even think about it. I never have second thoughts. I guess I’ve been able to come back from so many different injuries because it (danger) never really crosses my mind. I’m lucky that way.
WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WANTED TO BECOME A JOCKEY?
My dad (Leon) rode for 22 years, so I grew up around it and watched him ride from the time I was a little kid. All I ever wanted to be was a rider. My father didn’t want me to be a rider, but he groomed me right from the start. Then I went through a phase—maybe my early teens—where I had seen my dad get hurt too many times and hauled off in an
ambulance one too many times that I started think- ing that ‘maybe this isn’t for me.’
It’s a tough experience when you’re a little kid to watch that stuff happen to a parent, so I played sports and did other things for a time and put riding on the backburner. But the whole time, my dad was grinding in the basics, always grinding the fundamentals. It was when I was 16 or 17 years old that I decided to pursue it. At that point, I had all the basics down. All I had to do was brush up on them and learn how to implement them at speed.
It all comes down to my dad. He made sure I understood the fundamentals. He would say, “I want it to be so natural to you that you don’t even think about it.” He is my first teacher and really my only teacher. I’ve picked up things from other people, but he’s the only real coach I’ve ever had. Even to this day, when things aren’t going great or I need someone to look at what I’m doing, he’s the only one I turn to. If I have a bad ride, he’s the first one to call me on the phone. He’ll say, “Did I teach you that?”
YOU RODE YOUR FIRST WINNER IN 1993 IN IDAHO. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER MOST ABOUT THAT DAY?
I was so young. I wasn’t riding full time then. I rode sporadically. I actually remember more about my first race than my first winner. I was raised around
all those guys in the jockeys’ room. They were like second fathers to me growing up. To make my (rid- ing) debut with guys I grew up admiring, guys that kept me out of trouble, was pretty awesome and it meant a lot to me. I kind of knew the first win would come at some point, but it was just nice to get it out of the way.
A Jockey’s View
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SPEEDHORSE, December 2015
THE BACKSIDE