After a seven-year hiatus, retired Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens, 49,
announced Thursday on HRTV that he would return to the saddle this Sunday in
Santa Anita’s 6TH race.
“My knees probably didn’t feel this good the last five years that I rode,”
Stevens said in making the announcement. “I’ve been getting on horses for the
past eight weeks and there’s been a lot of speculation about me coming back.
I’ve worked some exciting horses over the past couple of weeks. A couple in
particular that kinda made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and I said
‘Man, I missed this,’ just the feeling of that straight power and speed
underneath you.
“I spent the last couple of months…I was up in the great Northwest, up in
Seattle going through kind of a boot camp type program just getting healthy and
fit and getting on some horses and I said ‘You know what, I haven’t felt like
this since probably 10 years before I retired.'”
Entries were taken Thursday morning for Sunday’s races and Stevens is named
to ride Jebrica, a four-year-old gelding in the 6TH race. Jebrica is trained by
veteran conditioner Jim Penney, for whom Stevens rode early in his career at the
now-shuttered Longacres Racetrack in Renton, Washington.
“He’s a horse that’s been training well and (this) gives me a chance to
stretch my legs and get my timing back a little bit,” said Stevens, a winner of
three Kentucky Derbies. “I haven’t been this comfortable working horses in the
mornings. Sometimes the morning work was harder on me than the afternoon. You’re
doing different things, you’re on young horses that are jumping sideways, doing
this or that, that would tweak your knee. I was able to get on yearlings that
are now two-year-olds up in Seattle and it’s done me a lot of good.”
Born March 6, 1963, in Caldwell, Idaho, Stevens was known as a fierce
competitor who relished the pressure of big race-day situations. He said that
following his ride on Sunday, he would return to the HRTV set and that for the
time being, he would remain as an analyst with both HRTV and NBC.
“Life is short,” he noted. “Someone said on Twitter the other day, ‘Is
Stevens in a mid-life crisis?’ And I said, ‘Man, I hope it’s mid-life, that
means I got another 50 years left in me.'”
Although he rode in a race for retired Hall of Fame jockeys at Santa Anita on
October 18, 2008, Stevens officially retired in 2005, following a widely
acclaimed role in the 2003 blockbuster hit movie “Seabiscuit,” in which he
played the legendary jockey George Woolf.
In addition to his three Kentucky Derby wins — Winning Colors (1988),
Thunder Gulch (1995) and Silver Charm (1997) — Stevens has eight Breeders’ Cup
wins, two Preakness victories and three Belmont Stakes.
Stevens has a total of 4,888 wins from 27,595 mounts. When asked by HRTV
anchor Kurt Hoover who his agent was going to be, Stevens responded, “Gary
Stevens, for now. I’ll have an announcement on that later.”
First post time at Santa Anita on Sunday will be at 12:30 p.m. (PST).
Approximate post time for Sunday’s 6TH race is 3:05 p.m.
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