Veteran rider Hole earns 2,000th career victory

Last updated: 5/22/15 6:27 PM

Jockey Taylor Hole celebrated his 2,000th career win on Friday
(Jim McCue/Maryland Jockey Club)

Veteran jockey Taylor Hole picked up his 2,000th career
victory on Friday, riding Dr Bolt (Cherokee’s Boy) to victory in the

6TH race at Pimlico.

Dr Bolt, owned by Five Hellions Farm and
trained by Donnovan Haughton, took the lead down the stretch from
Puturseatbelton (Bustin Stones) and was 3 3/4 lengths clear on the wire while covering six furlongs
over the fast track in 1:13 1/5.

After the race, Hole was joined in the winner’s
circle by his fellow riders, friends and staff of the Maryland Jockey Club.

“It’s a little surreal,” Hole said of his milestone victory. “I took my time
getting here but it feels great.”

When asked if he was relieved to have victory 2,000 behind him, Hole replied,
“It is but it isn’t. It’s very special. I just never focused on this one number.
I just tried to do the best I could with every horse I rode. We’d get here
eventually.”

A multiple stakes winner, Hole had
single-season career highs of 198 wins in 2001 and $1.63 million in purse
earnings in 2000. He ranked seventh at Laurel Park’s 2015 winter meet with 14
victories, and is among the top 10 riders at the current Pimlico meet.

Hole, 43, captured his first black-type victory in Maryland on Rush to Glory
following the disqualification for interference of favored Maysville in the Marshua S. on January 8, 2005.

He also rode Bo Badger to victory for Eighth
Note Stable and trainer John Botty in the last race run before the closing of
Suffolk Downs on October 14, 2014.

Hole’s late father, Michael, was a British-born
jockey who came to the United States in 1961 and rode 2,042 winners, mostly in New York
and New England, before his untimely death in April 1976. Hole followed in the
business working odd jobs as a Rockingham Park stablehand in the mid-1980s, then
moved to the Maryland steeplechase farm of a family friend to learn professional
riding.

On January 17, 1992, Hole earned his first victory on his third career mount
at Rockingham. Hole picked up win No. 1,000 aboard Salt State at Suffolk Downs
on January 14.

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