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Jerry Bailey
Jerry D. Bailey (born August 29, 1957) is a retired American Hall of Fame jockey and current NBC Sports thoroughbred racing analyst. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest jockeys of all time.
Bailey was born in Dallas, Texas but raised in El Paso. He had a pony as a child and became interested in thoroughbred racing at age 11 when his father, James, a dentist, claimed some horses at nearby Sunland Park Racetrack in New Mexico. He began riding Quarter horses at the age of 12 and started riding Thoroughbreds competitively at 17 in 1974.
Bailey took his first racetrack job at Sunland Park as a groom for trainer J.J. Pletcher and an occasional babysitter for Pletcher's son, Todd, then in the second grade, who later would follow in his father's footsteps and eventually become one of America's most successful trainers.
Bailey's first official ride came on November 2, 1974, on Pegged Rate at Sunland. That horse finished unplaced, but Bailey won with both his mounts the next day, scoring his first career victory aboard Fetch. He had no grand ambitions: "I didn't think I'd ever leave New Mexico", he told an ESPN interviewer.
The next year, Bailey was the leading apprentice jockey at Sunland and Ak-Sar-Ben, where he rode his first stakes winner, Pletcher-trained 3-year-old filly Bye Bye Battle, in the $25,000 His Majesty's Council Handicap on May 24, 1975. After briefly attending college that fall at the University of Texas at El Paso, Bailey returned to the saddle to be leading apprentice at Oaklawn Park in 1976.
In the fall of 1976, Bailey moved to the south Florida circuit of Calder Race Course, Gulfstream Park and Hialeah Park, and over the next few years also raced at Hollywood Park, Monmouth Park, Hawthorne Race Course and Arlington Park. In 1982, Bailey began riding regularly at the major New York tracks – Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Saratoga – while returning to Florida in the winters, a popular circuit he would continue riding the remainder of his career, and would later dominate.
Regarded as one of the world's all-time greatest jockeys, Bailey's mounts won 5,894 races and more than $296 million during a 31-year riding career, second only to jockey Pat Day at the time of Bailey's retirement.
At the time of his retirement in January 2006, he ranked No. 2 on the career North American money list and still ranks No. 3. He won each Triple Crown race twice (his winning Kentucky Derby rides through traffic on Sea Hero in 1993 and Grindstone in 1996 are considered two of the best in modern Derby history); and scored a record five wins in the Breeders' Cup Classic, the richest race in the U.S., along with other Breeders' Cup categories, totalling 15 victories in all, a record Bailey shares with only Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron.
Jerry Bailey
Jerry D. Bailey (born August 29, 1957) is a retired American Hall of Fame jockey and current NBC Sports thoroughbred racing analyst. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest jockeys of all time.
Bailey was born in Dallas, Texas but raised in El Paso. He had a pony as a child and became interested in thoroughbred racing at age 11 when his father, James, a dentist, claimed some horses at nearby Sunland Park Racetrack in New Mexico. He began riding Quarter horses at the age of 12 and started riding Thoroughbreds competitively at 17 in 1974.
Bailey took his first racetrack job at Sunland Park as a groom for trainer J.J. Pletcher and an occasional babysitter for Pletcher's son, Todd, then in the second grade, who later would follow in his father's footsteps and eventually become one of America's most successful trainers.
Bailey's first official ride came on November 2, 1974, on Pegged Rate at Sunland. That horse finished unplaced, but Bailey won with both his mounts the next day, scoring his first career victory aboard Fetch. He had no grand ambitions: "I didn't think I'd ever leave New Mexico", he told an ESPN interviewer.
The next year, Bailey was the leading apprentice jockey at Sunland and Ak-Sar-Ben, where he rode his first stakes winner, Pletcher-trained 3-year-old filly Bye Bye Battle, in the $25,000 His Majesty's Council Handicap on May 24, 1975. After briefly attending college that fall at the University of Texas at El Paso, Bailey returned to the saddle to be leading apprentice at Oaklawn Park in 1976.
In the fall of 1976, Bailey moved to the south Florida circuit of Calder Race Course, Gulfstream Park and Hialeah Park, and over the next few years also raced at Hollywood Park, Monmouth Park, Hawthorne Race Course and Arlington Park. In 1982, Bailey began riding regularly at the major New York tracks – Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Saratoga – while returning to Florida in the winters, a popular circuit he would continue riding the remainder of his career, and would later dominate.
Regarded as one of the world's all-time greatest jockeys, Bailey's mounts won 5,894 races and more than $296 million during a 31-year riding career, second only to jockey Pat Day at the time of Bailey's retirement.
At the time of his retirement in January 2006, he ranked No. 2 on the career North American money list and still ranks No. 3. He won each Triple Crown race twice (his winning Kentucky Derby rides through traffic on Sea Hero in 1993 and Grindstone in 1996 are considered two of the best in modern Derby history); and scored a record five wins in the Breeders' Cup Classic, the richest race in the U.S., along with other Breeders' Cup categories, totalling 15 victories in all, a record Bailey shares with only Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron.