Page 9 - August 2005 The Game

Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper The Game, August 2005 9
Review of Ride of a Lifetime:The Sandy Hawley Story
By Peter Gross
A funny thing happened after I picked up my copy of Ride of a Lifetime; The Sandy Hawley Story.
I couldn't put it down. I got it on a Wednesday night and had read all 210 pages before the sun set on Thursday. I mean, it's not a John Grisham novel, it's a sports bio for Peteski's sake!
I couldn't stop turning the pages.
Ride of a Lifetime, as you would expect, follows the career of Canada's most famous jockey from the time he first rode a mechanical horse at a Woolworth's in Oshawa through his apprenticeship, his brilliant years riding Queen's Plate and Canadian Oaks winners, his domination of the major tracks in California to the end of his riding career and the smooth transition he has made into Woodbine's most effective and charming ambassador and broadcaster.
Co-author Perry Lefko took endless hours of audiotape and created a manuscript that delivers the real Sandy Hawley. And the real Sandy Hawley is possibly this country's all-time most heroic athlete. This comes through in the book, in the passages selected by Lefko and the careful way he has included interviews with the critical people in Hawley's life; his father Des, his long-time agent Colin Wick, trainer Lou Cavalaris, jockey Laffit Pincay, Woodbine President David Willmot and even Hawley's wives Sherri, Vicki and Lisa.
We get stories of Hawley's four Queen's Plate wins, his eight triumphs in the Oaks and heart-pounding accounts of important races around the world.
But it's the supporting events in Hawley's life that give this book its irresistible energy. Sandy tells us of the time at Greenwood when he stood up at the wire a lap too early and how, he misjudged the finish line while riding a horse in the 1981 Kentucky Derby.
It's vintage Hawley, the superstar without an ego and perhaps the most endearing part of the book is how excited he always was to meet other celebrities. When he first meets veteran jockeys Bill Hartack, Angel Cordero Jr, and Earlie Fires, he remarks, "These guys were like movie stars to me."
When he's introduced to Bill Shoemaker, typically, Hawley calls him Mr. Shoemaker. There are stories of him golfing with Dean Martin and hanging out with Mickey Rooney and Farrah Faucett. And Sandy describes this hilarious meeting with Bob Hope:
"I had just finished welcoming a group of visiting Canadians at a seminar hosted by racing analyst Jim Bannon in the Century City Hotel. Jim and I took the elevator down to the bottom level and when the doors opened, Bob Hope was standing there. Jim was so excited, he blurted out, "Bob Hope!". Without missing a beat, Hope exclaimed, "Sandy Hawley!""
There is, however, extraordinary tragedy in Ride of a Lifetime. Sandy takes us through Avelino Gomez' death that
came as a result of a fall in the 1981 Oaks, a race in which Hawley rode. He recalls the day that Ron Turcotte, Secretariat's regular jockey was paralyzed from a spill in New
York. Hawley's account of January 18th, 1975 is truly chilling; at the last minute he was given a horse to ride in a race at Santa Anita, not really knowing at the time that the horse's initial jockey had just been killed in a freak accident at the starting gate.
Hawley's battle with skin cancer provides the book's most potent punch. In the fall of 1985, doctors gave Hawley the ultimate disqualification, predicting he might not live through the next year. His courage and stamina in the face of a seemingly unbeatable foe is heroism far greater than anything he did on the race- track.
Of course, you'd think, wow, the guy
beat cancer, guess his life is great. Well hang on a second - Hawley's most devastating injury occurred in 1995 when a horse flipped over on during the post parade,
"It was, by far, the worst accident of my career. I had broken my pelvis, shattered a vertebrae, severed my urethra, dislocated my left shoulder and broken two ribs on my left side."
That happened in August of 1995. Incredibly, Hawley won 94 races in 1996.
Ride of a Lifetime gives us the schizoid Sandy Hawley. To his family, his friends, the media, he is always, kind, warm, obliging - the Gentleman Jockey as he was often called. But in a race, he was Mike Tyson in silks. He recounts his riding infractions and suspensions almost with pride - it was his aggression and refusal to lose that made him great. Animal lovers
will cringe at his admission that he whipped a horse 52 times during one particular stretch drive.
Sandy Hawley's memories and Perry Lefko's editing choices make Ride of a Lifetime rip through the stretch much like Hawley on Youth in the 1976 Canadian International. It's possible, though, that those who are not horse-racing fans might not appreciate the volume of material on Hawley's year-by-year racing efforts; his statistics are almost exhausting.
Oh, yeah, just one more crazy story. In 1985, a desperate horseplayer, tired of losing money by betting against Hawley, actually came to his home with a gun and tied Hawley and his wife up while robbing them. Just before leaving, the goof asks Sandy if there was an upcoming horse he liked.
Read the book. It's full of stuff like that.
Get closer to the action,
Get closer to the action,
Downtown
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closer to home.
closer to home.
Enjoy exciting simulcast racing 7-days a week from Woodbine, Mohawk and tracks across North America and around the world at these 24 conveniently-located Champions teletheatres in the Toronto area.
www.WoodbineEntertainment.com/champions
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