"It's like standing on the hood of a car going 35 miles an hour."
That's how jockey Mark Walker describes the danger of what he does.
"Say that car slams on its brakes. That's happened to me many times."
A jockey since 1974, Walker has the scars to prove it. "I've broken
my back, my shoulder, my knee's been operated on twice, I've broken
ribs. It's a very high-risk occupation."
All jockeys have a spill on the track sooner or later. Walker figures he's
lucky if he makes it through a busy year without falling off a horse.
Despite the danger, Walker says there's nothing quite like the rush
of hitting that first turn at 40 miles an hour.
Other jockeys agree.
All kinds of things can happen out on the track. In his eight years as
a jockey, Richard Hamel hasn't had any really bad falls. But there was
a close call just the other day. The horse Hamel was riding had a heart attack.
"It went for about a 16th of a mile run and then it was dead. It was still
running."
Hamel knew there was a problem and was able to slow the horse down so that
he could jump off safely.
As far as real spills go, Hamel hit the dirt last year in the middle of
the pack during a race. Considering he tumbled and bounced for about 100 feet,
Hamel figures his flak jacket saved his life -- or at least a few ribs.
But it's the stories of victory that jockeys really enjoy telling.
That reward is something even apprentice jockeys can enjoy. In his first
year, Davey Wilson won 139 out of about 650 races, an outstanding record for
a rookie.
It all started for Wilson when he began working with friends who were trainers.
He eventually started galloping horses. They let him ride in a race once,
and the rest was history. This seems to be the way to get involved in the
horse racing business.
Walker also started his jockey training early. He hated school, so when
he was 13 he got a job painting fences for a man who raised thoroughbreds.
"I just kind of worked my way into it. My school principal said, 'I'll
pass you if you can get a job at the racetrack.'" Walker chuckles. "He
wanted to be rid of me as badly as I wanted to get out of there. I ended up
working at the track in Richmond [in British Columbia, Canada]. I shoveled
manure and brushed the horses for two or three years, then started riding
them."
Now Walker is one of the leading riders at his track, and has been for
the last decade.
While knowing horses and the racing business is important, all these riders
will tell you that weight is the priority in this job. Hamel talks of how
some riders have to sit in the sauna the morning of the races to "pull" the
four or five pounds they need to drop in order to race.
Sure, you need the proper weight and experience to be a jockey. But the
great jockeys have something else.
"Communication," says Walker. "That's my job -- to make that horse
want to give me everything. That's done through feel and communication
with my hands on the lines."
Jockey Rachael Senties agrees. "You have to have good hands," she says.
Horses are very sensitive to the reins, so what your hands do with the reins
is crucial to successful racing.
In his 35 years in racing, Peter Hodge has pretty much seen it all. These
days, he's the superintendent of a jockeys' room at a racetrack.
Yet over the years, he's galloped horses, worked at the starting gate,
and groomed and exercised the animals.
The way he looks at it, there are two types of jockeys. "Some jockeys work
at it as their full-time work; others are hobbyists who have regular jobs
somewhere else."
Hodge also says there are two kinds of "meets" or races. There are the
official ones, and then there are the rogue or outlaw meets. "The up-country
meets are a good way for a young person to break in. Some get their start
up there then come to [the professional racetrack] when they're ready,"
says Hodge.
Even with that experience, it isn't easy to become a jockey. When
a rider gets accepted into an apprenticeship, they have to provide their own
tack, which includes their costume, boots, whip, girth and three or four saddles.
All this is very expensive -- the old-timers usually help out by lending equipment
to the newcomers.
As a journeyperson, the jockey is self-employed and has to pay agents to
find work for them and valets for those services.
Despite all this, Hodge says being a jockey is worth the hassle. "For those
who make it, it's a great life. Excitement, freedom, spare time to pursue
other activities. Many are ardent golfers and fishers. We're usually
pretty interested in rodeo activities, too. We practice cattle penning here
for a hobby in off-hours."
Jockeys have to enjoy their work while they can, because most of them have
a relatively short career.
"Typically, a jockey hangs up his or her tack [retires] in the mid-30s,
although a few stay until about age 50. Many of them have invested their earnings,
so they have savings to fall back on. And there's lots of related jobs
they can do in the field when they don't jockey anymore,"
says Hodge.