Just another race.... Review on Stewart Elliott

Stewart Elliott did not show any emotion. For him, it was just another race.

It did not matter if a crowd of 140,000 had filed in at the racecourse from all over the country. It did not matter if an entire nation was going to watch the race live on television—it did not matter if the race was called the Kentucky Derby.

He was a rider, and he was there to do a job.

The job that he knew best, the job that had been his bread and butter, and occasionally jam, for the last 23 years, barring a year or two when he was out of business for failing to keep his weight down.

True, the 39-year old had ridden over 3,000 winners in his 23-year career, but in a country that boasts of 128 racetracks, conducts over 60,000 races every year and distributes well over $1 billion annually as prize money, the average of about 130 winners a year for a jockey does not earn you a glance of admiration even from an apprentice rider.

And no one knew it better than Stewart Elliott. He had seen it all, heard it all.

With an unblemished record of six unbeaten starts, any top rider from Pat Day to Mike Smith to Edgar Prado to Jose Santos would have given their right arm to ride Smarty Jones. The horse enjoyed unabashed favouritism for the Derby despite being saddled by a first-time trainer.

“Stew who?,” cried a headline in a local Kentucky newspaper when Roy Chapman, the ever-ailing septuagenarian owner of Smarty Jones, announced that it would be Stewart Elliott and no one else who will partner Smarty Jones. And a whole nation thought the old man had gone senile. “It’s the Kentucky Derby!,” “You don’t own a Derby horse every day,” were the popular refrains.

“He’s cool,” was all the old man said in Elliott’s defence.

Stewart Elliott did not feel anything, except a quiet sense of gratitude for the owner.

The history of the race was loaded against him. No first time rider had grabbed the coveted honour since 1979 after Ronnie Franknel had won astride Spectacular Bid. The task actually was much more difficult than the statistic warranted, as John Servis, the trainer of Smarty Jones, too was saddling his first runner in the Kentucky Derby.

And then dawned the first Saturday of May which also happened to be the first day of the month. Roy Chapman with wife Pat was in his designated seat at Churchill Downs as 18 best equines in the country lined up to run for the roses. Chapman, the man confined to either bed or wheelchair, was candid enough to confess: “Smarty Jones was the best reason for me to get out of the bed today.”

Stewart Elliott adjusted his goggles knowing full well that this might be his first and last chance to be loaded in a gate for the Kentucky Derby. The weather had been bad, “But not really bad,” he thought, if you considered the warning about tornado that had threatened the running of the 130th Derby earlier in the day. But why should he worry? He was a rider, and he was here to do a job.

The gates clicked open for the most important race of the year, and Lion Heart went to the front. Elliott stalked him for most of the trip, not getting unduly perturbed when Lion Heart tried to skip away just before the final turn. He knew he had a good horse under him who had obeyed him every time he had asked for help on the last six occasions. He ended up winning the race by 2-3/4 lengths from the pace-setter Lion Heart.

It was an easy victory, much like Elliott had expected it to be.

Later, in the paddock, when the first journo fired the usual salvo, “How did you hold up so well?”, he answered truthfully, “Sir, I have been doing it for a long time. Yes, I know it’s the Kentucky Derby—but a horse race is a horse race.”

Apparently, he was not impressed by the $854,000 that the winner earned, besides the $5 million bonus offered by Oklahoma Park, and the part of it that would go to his bank account as commission for the winning ride.

On Monday, in less than 48 hours after winning the Kentucky Derby, Stewart Elliott was back at his home track—an obscure racecourse by the name of Philly Park—where he was engaged to ride a dud called The Fat Man for a $4,000 purse.

The small crowd at the county track cheered him lustily when he mounted The Fat Man and made way to the starting gates.

Stewart Elliott did not show any emotion. For him, it was just another race.