My Feuds With Officials And The Press

I know there's a lot of trainers I don't ride for, and I don't know why. But I'll tell you one thing, I'm not going to ask them why. If they don't want to ride me, that's their prerogative. I'd like to, and maybe by talking to them I could iron things out, but I'm not going to do it. If the man is mad at me, he's got a reason for being mad, whether it's justified or not. He's mad at me, and he doesn't want me to ride. If he doesn't want me to ride, I'm sure not gonna beg him. I want him to ride me because he thinks I can win—not because I'm a friend of his.

Sometimes somebody will tell a trainer something I said or did, or a trainer will read something about me. Man, I can't go to every owner and trainer and explain everything they read in the papers. If they don't have enough confidence in me, then what's the use of me riding for them? There's not one time I ever got off a horse that I didn't give them my honest opinion. If they're mad at me for that, what else am I going to do? There's nothing I can do.

There's no question that I'm lacking good horses to ride now. Oh, I'm riding lots of long shots. But as far as the caliber of horses there are to ride, I'm pretty much out in left field now. If owners and trainers of good horses are mad at me because of my honest opinion, what's the use of giving an honest opinion? I could be just like an average rider, go back and say, "This horse got in a lot of trouble," when he really didn't get in a lot of trouble. "This horse ran straight and kind," when he didn't. Or "This horse is perfectly sound," when he wasn't perfectly sound. That's all I have to do. But I can't do that. Man, I've got to live with myself first.

Several years ago I was riding lots for Fred Hooper and he had a big stable. One day I was on a 4-to-5 shot of his called Greek Circle at Hialeah. When I warmed him up, I couldn't guide him properly. It could have been a thrown stifle, I don't know, but this was an unusual situation, where I really didn't have any control of the horse. He was completely off stride, and I just absolutely couldn't get him to even gallop in a straight line. It was an extreme thing, and to me it was very important. When we got to the gate I refused to ride him.

Now, there's no logical reason for me to have a 4-to-5 shot scratched at the gate. The ultimate of riding is to make it easier for the jock to win, and having a 4-to-5 shot that is all right is what you set out to do. There was no question about Greek Circle's past performance or his ability, and I thought I was doing Mr. Hooper a favor by doing what I honestly thought was correct. I honestly thought I couldn't guide him.

I'm not questioning Mr. Hooper's veracity. In his own mind he thought the horse was all right, and the trainer probably thought he was all right, too. There's no reason for them to run him if they didn't think he was all right. But when I got on his back I know I was closer to him at the last minute. I have, you know, some kind of an idea about a horse. If it's a borderline case, I'll ride him. This was not. I could just as easy have ridden that horse and finished up the racetrack and been very diplomatic, as they keep telling me to be, and told Mr. Hooper that I just couldn't understand what happened to him. Instead all I did was cut off my nose to spite my face. I knew Mr. Hooper was going to get angry, but what did he want me to do? Lie to him? I didn't appreciate getting smacked in the mouth because I tried to do something I thought was right. The only bad thing was that this actual case could never have been proven. The only way it could have been proven is if he had run that day and had gone down because I wasn't able to handle him, or something of that nature. To this day I don't know what was wrong with him. I know I rode the horse the following year and won a couple of races on him. He was ail right then.

How can you prove your point? The next time something like this happened and they tried to prove I was wrong, the horse got beat about 15 lengths. But do you think that erased all the publicity from the Greek Circle incident? I was on a horse for Arnold Winick at Tropical Park and I said he was unsound. He was second choice in the race, and I didn't want to ride him. The steward and the veterinarian didn't believe he was unsound. They ordered him back to the paddock, and the people booed me something terrible. They finally got a jock, Buck Thornburg, to ride him, and he ran terrible. He ran terrible.

You know what a steward or a veterinarian will think? Any horse can run a bad race. Of course any horse can run a bad race, but I knew this horse would run a bad race because he was off form, because he was sore. And then the people had nerve enough to boo Thornburg when he came back on the horse. Furthermore, they then had nerve enough to cheer me after I came out on my next mount. Absolutely had the god-dam nerve to cheer me. Boy, some gall!

And where was the press then? Where was the educated, intelligent press then? The press that's going to print the truth, tell the facts? Where were they at? Beautiful. Beautiful people. There's no way in the world they're gonna educate the fans, because they don't want to educate them. You think they care about the public? They care about themselves. As long as the article is interesting and they get it printed, they don't care whether it's the truth or not. Some of them may want to print the truth, but if it comes down to really worrying whether it is or is not 100%, truthful—no, it's finished, so send it in. Then they absolutely expect you to respect them.

You know, I'm not married. But I really dig kids. I just happen to dig children, and it's no effort on my part, and I probably enjoy myself more when I am with them than they do. Children have one great attribute—they lack something that unfortunately they grow up and get: they don't know hate. They know dislike and things like that, but they don't know hate and bitterness and things like that. So therefore they're very easy to get along with. They're not coarse and hard and they just haven't grown up to the hardness of the world. That makes them automatically enjoyable. It's nice to get away from the rat race and see how kids enjoy themselves because they haven't quite reached that plateau yet. Children appreciate real things. Of course, I also believe in a certain amount of discipline for kids.