Retired Hall-of-Fame jockey Day thanks Lord for his blessings

The possibility of winning the Kentucky Derby seemed very remote when retired Hall-of-Fame jockey Pat Day began his career in Thoroughbred racing. The athlete, who spent two years on the rodeo circuit before making the transition into the world of Thoroughbred racing in 1973, was born and raised in the mountains of Colorado. And although there wasn't any Thoroughbred racing in his home state, Day believes his steps were divinely directed into the sport where he would spend more than 30 years, and where his talent and ability were dormant and yet to be discovered.

Day was the featured speaker Saturday at the South Carolina Thoroughbred Owners' and Breeders' Association Awards Dinner at the Kershaw County Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center in Camden. Day became the third jockey to win 8,000 races when he piloted Camden Park to victory on May 31, 2001 at Churchill Downs.

The future jockey would get his first racing job at Riverside Thoroughbred Farm in California in January 1973. Day was told by the farm owner and manager that he would have to be on the farm for two to three years, and would then have to go to the racetrack for another year and continue working before he would get an opportunity to ride. The 19-year-old Day would boot home his first winner in a 7-furlong claiming race, while in the irons on Foreblunged, on July 29, 1973 at Prescott Downs in Tucson, Ariz.

"When I first got started, I really didn't have any aspirations," said Day. "I didn't look beyond the exterior fence of the racetrack that I was riding in. I was really naive to the whole racing game. When I started riding, wherever I was riding, I just wanted to be leading rider that particular week, and I never looked beyond that."

Life on the racetrack was a bit different for Day than the rodeo circuit, and there would be different challenges.

"I had to pay my own way (while on the rodeo circuit), pay an entry fee, hope that I drew good, and hope that I could ride to the whistle, and score high enough to go to the pay window," said Day. "It didn't happen very often."

It was somewhat incredulous to Day that as a jockey he was going to get paid to participate in a sport when he began riding in races, and that he would be given an even greater sum of money if he were to win.

"I literally thought I had died and gone to heaven," said Day. "Really, the transition (from rodeo to racing) wasn't that dramatic because of the talent and ability that I had been blessed with by the Lord. I was an absolute natural. It wasn't something that I had been taught."

Day seemed to have a sixth sense as a jockey. The horseman knew intuitively what he should do during a race as it unfolded, and how to do it. Horses wanted to run for Day, and he seemed to know how to get the best out of a horse to achieve optimal results.

Many credit Day with helping to change the complexion of the sport, changing the way jockeys approach riding in races, as his patient style has been emulated by countless others. It's that same equanimity that has earned him respect in the world of Thoroughbred racing. Day is a family man, with a tremendous spirit of generosity and possesses great humility. The athlete has been an exemplary model to others on and off the racetrack, since accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Day had struggled with addiction problems early in his career.

The all-time leading rider at both Churchill Downs and Keeneland; Day was the president of the Jockeys' Guild in 2000-2001. Day was elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1991. He finished his career with 8,404 wins.

"The Lord has blessed me with talent and ability, and kept orchestrating opportunities," said Day. "It kept leading me to bigger and better opportunities that ultimately culminated with a successful racing career."

A winner of six national riding titles by number of races won, the first of which he won in 1982 (he would also win the title in 1983, 1984, 1986, 1990 and 1991).

Day would pick up the first of his four Eclipse Awards as North America's outstanding jockey in 1984, and he would also win the award in 1986, 1987 and 1991. The first Eclipse Award in 1984 took on added meaning as earlier in the year on Jan. 27, he committed his life to Christ.

"Initially, I thought I was being called into the ministry." said Day. "I received a revelation from God that he called me to work within the industry, and not to leave it, but to take the talent and run, and do the best that I could. All the while being open and giving praise, honor and glory to the Lord."

A son of Icecapade would play a large role in helping Day win the first of those Eclipse Awards. Black Chip Stable's Wild Again, who was purchased for $35,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Ky Select Yearling Auction in the summer of 1981, would be a $360,000 supplement to the inaugural running of the Breeders' Cup Classic. The Vincent Timphony charge would go onto win the race at odds of 31-1, in an incredible stretch duel with Gate Dancer and Slew O' Gold.

"I give all the credit to Wild Again," said Day. "He ran the race of his life. I've never been on a horse before or since that tried any harder than he did. Ultimately, he got the victory. I knew that was a major contributor to having been selected for the Eclipse Award."

The next year, Day would capture his first Classic race by winning the Preakness while up on Eugene V. Klein's Tank's Prospect.

"Tank's Prospect got up in the final jump to beat Chief's Crown (winning by a head)," said Day.

One race that eluded Day for much of his career was the world's most well-known and recognized Thoroughbred race, the first jewel of the Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby. Day would go postward 22 times in the Derby during his career, and it would be on a 16-1 shot, his 10th try that the veteran horseman would finally capture the Run for the Roses. It was an indescribable feeling, said Day.

"The Derby in 1992 aboard Lil E. Tee was the highlight of my 32 year career," said Day. "There were some other victories that were incredibly special, and mean a lot to me, but they all pale in comparison to winning the Derby, especially for Mr. Whiting and Mr. Partee, with whom I had such success for such an extended period of time, and they were absolutely two wonderful gentlemen."

However, it seemed as if Day might not ever win the 1 1/4-mile race, having come so close (finishing second for three consecutive years, 1988-1990, Aiken-trained Forty Niner (1988), Easy Goer (1989) and Aiken-trained Summer Squall (1990)), or having untoward luck on the favorite (Loblolly Stable's Demons Begone bled, and had to be pulled up on the backstretch in 1987). Day won one Kentucky Derby, the Preakness five times (including the 1990 Preakness with Dogwood Stable's Summer Squall) and three Belmont Stakes.

"I thought I knew what it would feel like (winning the Kentucky Derby)," said Day. "I was sadly mistaken. When I went under the finish line in front aboard Lil E. Tee, if I thought the feeling was going to be at the ceiling, it was just a little bit more than the moon."

But for Day, winning the Kentucky Derby was not something he was too concerned about, and used Romans 8:28 to help him bring his life into perspective.

"I was comfortable and content right where I was," said Day. "'If I should win a Derby, Hallelujah'. I wanted to win as much as anybody, but it wasn't a life and death situation."

The names of the stakes winners Day has ridden are too numerous to mention, and he piloted a number of great horses including the 1986 Horse-of-the-Year Lady's Secret, Favorite Trick who captured the 1997 HOY honors, 1991 Canadian Triple Crown winner Dance Smartly and dual Classic winner Tabasco Cat. However, it was a brilliantly fast, exciting chestnut son of Alydar, owned by Ogden Phipps, who captured the nation's imagination in 1989 with his rivalry against another outstanding horse Sunday Silence that Day considers the best horse he has ever ridden. Easy Goer stands out above all others.

"(When) he won the (1-mile) Gotham (Stakes), I never asked him. I certainly never laid a whip on him," said Day. I never even smooched him. I encouraged him mildly with my hand, and he was a fifth of a second off the world record (1:32 2/5 seconds in the Gotham). If I had any clue we were going that quick, I may have been tempted to squeeze him a little bit and tried to eclipse that mark."

The big, glossy, good looking colt had a number of physical problems during his career, and Day has great praise for Easy Goer's trainer, fellow Hall-of-Famer Shug McGaughey.

"Shug did a wonderful job training him," said Day. "His preparation in getting him (Easy Goer) up to the races was phenomenal."

The battles between Sunday Silence and Easy Goer made for one of the sport's all-time greatest rivalries. And although Sunday Silence won three of their four meetings, Easy Goer turned the tables on his foe in the Belmont, winning by daylight as he cruised to an eight-length victory, with the second fastest time in history in the 1 1/2-mile race.

"(The Belmont) was a sweet victory," said Day. "Any time you win, it's sweet. That was extra special. In the Derby, it came up a muddy racetrack, he was beat on the same surface in the fall of his two-year-old campaign in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile. It came up muddy the afternoon of the Derby. I thought well, he's grown up, he's matured. He wouldn't extend himself. He just had no confidence in the footing."

If there was one race Day would like to have an opportunity to do over, it would be the 1989 Preakness, a race where in a thrilling stretch duel, Sunday Silence would prevail by a nose over Easy Goer.

"I'll be very honest, if I had a mulligan, I'd like to have a chance to do that one over, and I think it would have been a different result," said Day. "To get beat a dirty head bob, given the way the race unfolded, I feel significantly responsibility for his defeat in that race."

Day would score another Classic win in 1990, with a horse that many thought would win the Kentucky Derby, Dogwood Stable's Summer Squall. The son of Storm Bird is a horse that Day describes as having great courage, strength of character, and the heart of a champion.

Summer Squall reached the front nearing the stretch of the 116th Kentucky Derby, and Day would have ridden the bay colt differently had he known what was going to transpire at a certain point during the race.

The rider would review the race over many times, trying to figure out how Summer Squall finished second to Unbridled.

"The third time I replayed the race, I listened to the announcer as I'm watching it, you know Churchill Downs on Derby Day, you have $100,000 people there, the infield's packed, the grandstand is packed, when we turned for home, it's just a wall of people," said Day. "We were turning for home, and at that specific moment, Mike Battaglia (track announcer) said, 'It's Summer Squall in front.' The crowd was going Yay, and it was such an immediate run on the body. It got his (Summer Squall's) attention. They don't turn the volume down. It continues to grow at a feverish pitch all of the way to the finish line."

However, two weeks later Summer Squall would exact revenge on Unbridled.

"I thought, I'm going to keep him (Summer Squall in the Preakness) back, I'm going to keep him in the middle of the dog fight," said Day. "Unbridled was a good horse, but he wasn't as good as Summer Squall."

A winner of 12 Breeders' Cup races, Day won both the 1994 Breeders' Cup Juvenile on Timber Country and Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies with Flanders.

Flanders suffered a career ending injury after the race sustaining two fractures one of the cannon bone and the other in the sesamoid bone of her right foreleg, after battling stablemate Serena's Song in the stretch, getting her head up at the wire to win the race.

"I often wonder what Flanders would have done," said Day. "She pulled up lame. I never felt her feel bad in the race. It wasn't until she broke into a jog at the conclusion of the race that I felt her going off, so I don't know where she went bad. She never ran again, but Serena's Song beat everybody the next year. I wondered what she could have done, had she remained sound."

It was another D. Wayne Lukas charge who would take the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, a chestnut son of Woodman named Timber Country, who would finish third the following year in the 121st Kentucky Derby, and later would go onto win the Preakness.

"I didn't get to ride him early in his career," said Day. "The first time I rode him was in the Champagne. He was really on the top of his game for that race, and he ran big in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile. He came back after they gave him some time off. When they brought him back into training, it took a while to get his motor running. (When) he ran in the Derby, he was very lethargic. But between the Derby and the Preakness, he really woke up."

Day became the all-time leading jockey by money earned in 2002, when he eclipsed Chris McCarron's (who had recently retired) mark, with a victory in the Grade I Sword Dancer Invitational at Saratoga, while riding the Jonathan Sheppard trained With Anticipation.

"The way it occurred was even more special," said Day. "To be honest with you, I left him with too much to do, and not enough time to get it done. He refused to get beat, and got up in the final strides, and beat the horse that Bobby Frankel had in the there (Denon). Edgar Prado had cut the corner and opened up on me. I mean, I put him to the task, and he was trying and he thought, I left him with too much to do, I let the horse get away from me, and With Anticipation refused to get beat. He's coming down charging, and six jumps to the wire, he swapped back to his left lead and just caught another gear."