Gary Lynn Stevens (born March 6, 1963) is an American
Thoroughbred horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic p ...
jockey
A jockey is someone who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing. The word "jockey" originated from England and was used to describe the individual ...
, actor, and
sports analyst. He became a professional jockey in 1979 and rode his first of three
Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is a horse race held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, almost always on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The competition is a Grade I stakes race for three-year ...
winners in 1988. He had nine wins in
Triple Crown races, winning the
Preakness Stakes and
Belmont Stakes
The Belmont Stakes is an American Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbreds run at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. It is run over 1.5 miles (2,400 m). Colts and geldings carry a weight of ; fillies carry . The race, nicknamed Th ...
three times each, as well as ten
Breeders' Cup races. He was also a nine-time winner of the
Santa Anita Derby. He entered the
United States Racing Hall of Fame in 1997. Combining his U.S. and international wins, Stevens had over 5,000 race wins by 2005, and reached his 5,000th North American win on February 15, 2015.
His career successes were intertwined with significant injuries and periods of temporary retirement, mostly due to knee problems, from 1999 until 2000 and again from 2005 to 2013. He had an acting role in the 2003 film ''
Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit (May 23, 1933 – May 17, 1947) was a champion thoroughbred racehorse in the United States who became the top money-winning racehorse up to the 1940s. He beat the 1937 Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, by four lengths in a two-horse ...
''. After his second retirement from riding in 2005, he worked for
TVG and then
HRTV and
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its d ...
as a horse racing analyst for seven years, had a brief stint as a
race horse trainer, and took a few other acting roles, notably in the TV series
Luck, before coming out of retirement again in 2013. In the 2013 season, he won 69 of 383 races and finished the year 12th in the nation in purse earnings, winning a number of significant races including the
2013 Preakness Stakes
The 2013 Preakness Stakes was the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes thoroughbred horse race. The race was held on May 18, 2013, and was televised on NBC. The race was won by Oxbow. The post time of the race was EDT. The race was the 12th ra ...
, the
Breeders' Cup Distaff
The Breeders' Cup Distaff is a Weight for Age Thoroughbred horse race for fillies and mares, 3 years old and up. Known as the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic between 2008 and 2012, it is held annually at a different racetrack in the United States or ...
and the
Breeders' Cup Classic. In 2014, he rode in the first half of the year, but his knee problems became too severe to continue riding, and in July he announced a "break" in order to get a total
knee replacement
Knee replacement, also known as knee arthroplasty, is a surgical procedure to replace the weight-bearing surfaces of the knee joint to relieve pain and disability, most commonly offered when joint pain is not diminished by conservative sources a ...
. He returned to riding by mid-October 2014, accepted mounts for the
2014 Breeders' Cup
The 2014 Breeders' Cup World Championships was the 31st edition of the premier event of the North American thoroughbred horse racing year. It took place on October 31 and November 1 at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California. The Breeders' Cup is g ...
, and rode a winning race by mid-November 2014. Following the
2016 Breeders' Cup, he again took time off, this time for a hip replacement, returning to racing in March 2017.
Due to his multiple joint replacements and repeated returns to racing, "The
Bionic Man
''The Six Million Dollar Man'' is an American science fiction and action television series, running from 1973 to 1978, about a former astronaut, USAF Colonel Steve Austin, portrayed by Lee Majors. After a NASA test flight accident, Austin is ...
" became one of his nicknames. However, Stevens retired as a jockey for a third and final in 2018 on account of a neck injury incurred after a fall. In 2019, he returned to being a sportscaster, working as a racing analyst for
Fox Sports.
Background
Stevens was born in Caldwell, Idaho, the youngest of three sons born to Ron and Barbara Stevens. Ron was a race horse trainer who worked with both
Thoroughbreds and
American Quarter Horse
The American Quarter Horse, or Quarter Horse, is an American breed of horse that excels at sprinting short distances. Its name is derived from its ability to outrun other horse breeds in races of a quarter mile or less; some have been clocked at s ...
s.
Stevens grew up around horses and first rode when he was three years old, assisted by his mother, who had been a
rodeo queen
A rodeo queen is a female representative and "face" of the sport of rodeo. She represents her rodeo, association, or region for a standard time of usually 12 months and is usually required to wear a cowboy hat, crown, and sash with her title on it. ...
.
As a seven-year-old child, Stevens had to wear a brace for 19 months due to a degenerative disease of the hip,
Perthes syndrome.
He began helping his father as a
horse groom
A groom or stable boy (stable hand, stable lad) is a person who is responsible for some or all aspects of the management of horses and/or the care of the stables themselves. The term most often refers to a person who is the employee of a stable o ...
at the age of eight.
In high school, Stevens was a wrestler with potential to obtain college athletic scholarships.
[ However, he dropped out of school in 1979 to pursue a career as a jockey.][
Stevens has been married three times and has five children, four from his first marriage and one from his third.] He became a grandfather in 2012.
Career
One of his older brothers, Scott, became a professional jockey, and at age 12 Stevens had decided to do the same. By the time he was 14, he was riding American Quarter Horse
The American Quarter Horse, or Quarter Horse, is an American breed of horse that excels at sprinting short distances. Its name is derived from its ability to outrun other horse breeds in races of a quarter mile or less; some have been clocked at s ...
s at small bush tracks. At age 16 he switched to Thoroughbreds, and at 17 won his first race at Les Bois Park, in Boise, Idaho on Little Star, a horse trained by his father. After leaving high school, he spent four months in southern California working for horse trainer Chuck Taliaferro
Chuck is a masculine given name or a nickname for Charles or Charlie. It may refer to:
People
Arts and entertainment
* Chuck Alaimo, American saxophonist, leader of the Chuck Alaimo Quartet
* Chuck Barris (1929–2017), American TV producer
* ...
, who had helped develop other young jockeys, including Steve Cauthen and Cash Asmussen. He returned to Boise for about a year, then rode from 1981 to 1982 at Portland Meadows
Portland Meadows was an American horse racing venue in Portland, Oregon, owned by The Stronach Group since July 3, 2011 and previously owned by Magna Entertainment Corp., MI Developments Inc. (MID) 2001. Built by William P. Kyne, who also built ...
, where he won two awards for his race riding. He went on to Longacres
Longacres was a Thoroughbred horse racetrack in Renton, Washington, United States. Owned by the Gottstein/Alhadeff family and operated by the Washington Jockey Club for the vast majority of its existence, the racetrack was the home of Thor ...
, near Seattle from 1982 through 1984, where he won 524 times, including a number of graded stakes races, broke numerous riding records and was the leading rider two years in a row.[
Returning to Southern California in 1984, he began winning Grade I races and rode his first ]Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is a horse race held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, almost always on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The competition is a Grade I stakes race for three-year ...
on Tank's Prospect
Tank's Prospect (May 2, 1982 – March 2, 1995) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse best known for winning the second leg of the U.S. Triple Crown series, the Preakness Stakes.
Background
Bred by Edward A. Seltzer, he was purchased for $625, ...
in 1985.[ Stevens' first win in a Triple Crown race was the 1988 ]Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is a horse race held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, almost always on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The competition is a Grade I stakes race for three-year ...
on the filly
A filly is a female horse that is too young to be called a mare. There are two specific definitions in use:
*In most cases, a ''filly'' is a female horse under four years old.
*In some nations, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, t ...
Winning Colors.[ He went on to win the Kentucky Derby again in 1995 and 1997, the Preakness Stakes in 1997, 2001 and 2013, and ]Belmont Stakes
The Belmont Stakes is an American Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbreds run at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. It is run over 1.5 miles (2,400 m). Colts and geldings carry a weight of ; fillies carry . The race, nicknamed Th ...
in 1995, 1998 and 2001. He fell short of winning the Triple Crown in 1997 when he won the Derby and Preakness with Silver Charm
Silver Charm (foaled February 22, 1994) is a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1997 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and 1998 Dubai World Cup (all of which he is the oldest surviving winner). He stood at stud in both Americ ...
but came in second in the Belmont. The following year, he picked up his second Belmont win on Victory Gallop
Victory Gallop (foaled May 30, 1995, in Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian-bred Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1998 Belmont Stakes to deny Real Quiet the Triple Crown, and was the 1999 Champion Older Dirt Male.
Background
Bred by Ivan Dalos' ...
, in turn denying a Triple Crown to Real Quiet.[ In 1993 he became the youngest jockey in history to surpass the $100 million earnings mark and was the fourth youngest jockey to be inducted into the Horse Racing Hall of Fame when he was given that honor in 1997.]
He won the Santa Anita Derby nine times, and won eleven Breeders' Cup races,[ making him the seventh-leading money winner in Breeders' Cup history .]
At the time of his 2005 temporary retirement, his mounts had collected over $221 million with 4,888 winners in North America, ranking Stevens fifth in all-time winnings at the time. He had over 5,000 wins in 2005[ when including overseas victories, including 49 wins in the UK,][ 55 races in France,][ and 20 victories in Hong Kong. Stevens considers his 5,000th win to have been in the Gaviola Stakes on October 30, 2005.]
Coming back in 2013, he won the Preakness Stakes on Oxbow and added additional wins to his lifetime total, including an international victory in the Shergar Cup at Ascot Racecourse that raised his total win record in the United Kingdom to 50. By 2014, his earnings stood at $236,951,490 and his North American wins were at 4,988.[ he had 139 international wins in six nations in addition to his North American records.] He reached his official 5,000th North American win at Santa Anita Park on February 13, 2015 on a horse named Catch a Flight, trained by Richard Mandella.
He retired briefly from racing for ten months in 1999–2000 due to knee problems,[ but returned after a rest and credited what was his first comeback to the use of ]nutraceutical
A nutraceutical or bioceutical is a pharmaceutical alternative which claims physiological benefits. In the US, "nutraceuticals" are largely unregulated, as they exist in the same category as dietary supplements and food additives by the FDA, unde ...
supplements containing glucosamine and chondroitin. In 2002, Stevens wrote a book about his life up to that point titled ''The Perfect Ride''. Hall of Fame sportscaster Jack Whitaker
John Francis Whitaker (May 18, 1924 – August 18, 2019) was an American sportscaster who worked for both CBS and ABC. Whitaker was a decorated army veteran of World War II. He fought in the Normandy Campaign and was wounded by an artillery stri ...
described it as: "a great read, not only for horse racing fans, but for anyone interested in how the American dream really works."
In November 2005, Stevens announced a second retirement. His decision was again linked to knee problems, but he reached it a week after Rock Hard Ten
Rock Hard Ten (April 5, 2001 – November 12, 2021) was an American thoroughbred racehorse and sire. Co-owned and bred by Madeleine Paulson, widow of Allen E. Paulson, the dark bay horse stood over 17 hands. He was sired by Kris S., out of the ...
, whom he rode to a second-place in the 2004 Preakness Stakes, was retired due to a foot injury. Describing the horse at the time as the best horse he had ever ridden, Stevens said, "He's retiring, I'm retiring." Stevens rode his last races of that year on November 26 at Churchill Downs
Churchill Downs is a horse racing complex located on Central Avenue in south Louisville, Kentucky, United States, famed for hosting the annual Kentucky Derby. It officially opened in 1875 and was named for Samuel Churchill, whose family was ...
. During his retirement, in addition to sportscasting and television work, Stevens worked as a jockey agent in 2007, representing Corey Nakatani. In 2009, Stevens also became a horse trainer with the assistance of his son, T.C. Stevens, based at Santa Anita.
Film and television
In the 2003 movie ''Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit (May 23, 1933 – May 17, 1947) was a champion thoroughbred racehorse in the United States who became the top money-winning racehorse up to the 1940s. He beat the 1937 Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, by four lengths in a two-horse ...
'', Stevens played jockey George Woolf
George Monroe Woolf (May 31, 1910 – January 4, 1946), nicknamed "The Iceman", was a Canadian thoroughbred race horse jockey. An annual jockey's award given by the United States Jockeys' Guild is named in his honor. He became known for riding t ...
, receiving generally positive reviews. He was recruited for the role in 2002 by the director, Gary Ross, and worked for four months on the film.[ He had assorted small parts in other works, including brief appearances in the TV series Jockeys and Wildfire In 2011 he became a regular cast member on the ]HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
television series '' Luck'' produced by Thoroughbred owner David Milch, starring as an on-the-skids jockey named Ronnie. The cancellation of the show in 2012 prior to the beginning of its second season turned out to provide Stevens with the inspiration to return to actual race riding.[
Stevens started working in January 2006 as a racing analyst with TVG.][ Also that month he joined ]NBC Sports
NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its d ...
as its lead horse racing analyst. He started a new job as a racing commentator for HRTV in 2008.
2013 comeback
On January 3, 2013, Stevens announced that he was coming out of retirement to ride horses as a professional jockey again. He was named to ride a horse at Santa Anita Park on January 6.
On January 12, 2013, Stevens won the first race of his comeback in a maiden race
In horse racing a maiden race is an event for horses that have not won a race. Horses that have not won a race are referred to as maidens. Maiden horse races are held over a variety of distances and under conditions with eligibility based on the se ...
aboard the filly Branding.
Stevens' first graded stakes win of his comeback came in the 2013 San Marcos Stakes
The San Marcos Stakes is an American Grade II Thoroughbred horse race held annually in late January or early February at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California. Open to horses aged four and older, it is raced on turf over a distance of one and o ...
on Slim Shadey. He reconnected with D. Wayne Lukas
Darrell Wayne Lukas (born September 2, 1935 in Antigo, Wisconsin) is an American horse trainer and a U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee. He has won twenty Breeders' Cup races, received five Eclipse Awards for his accomplishments, and his horses ha ...
for the Triple Crown series on a horse named Oxbow. The team finished sixth in the 2013 Kentucky Derby
The 139th running of the Kentucky Derby commenced at 6:33 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on May 4, 2013 at Churchill Downs. The race was televised in the United States on the NBC television network. The favorite, Orb, won a purse of $1.4 milli ...
, and on May 18, 2013, Stevens and Oxbow won the 2013 Preakness Stakes
The 2013 Preakness Stakes was the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes thoroughbred horse race. The race was held on May 18, 2013, and was televised on NBC. The race was won by Oxbow. The post time of the race was EDT. The race was the 12th ra ...
, his third Preakness win, and on the same day won the Dixieland Stakes on the undercard with the Lukas-trained Skyring. After a second-place finish in the Belmont, Stevens continued to ride regularly the rest of the year, and on November 1–2 at Santa Anita Park, Stevens won his third Breeders' Cup Distaff
The Breeders' Cup Distaff is a Weight for Age Thoroughbred horse race for fillies and mares, 3 years old and up. Known as the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic between 2008 and 2012, it is held annually at a different racetrack in the United States or ...
with Beholder as well as his first Breeders' Cup Classic aboard Mucho Macho Man
Mucho Macho Man ( foaled June 15, 2008) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2013 Breeders' Cup Classic. He was foaled in Florida and named after the Village People song " Macho Man". His breeders were Carole and John Rio of Flori ...
. His Classic win was the first in 15 total attempts, and he was the only jockey to have ridden in both the first Breeders' Cup in 1984 and in the 30th in 2013. He finished the year 12th in the nation by earnings with 69 wins from 383 races and his lifetime wins total stood at 4,957.[ HIs wins for 2013 included 18 graded stakes victories.] 2013 marked Stevens' third most successful year since 2000, comparing favorably to his 23 graded stakes wins from 487 starts and 94 wins in 2005 and 532 starts with 99 wins with 22 graded stakes wins in 2001.
In 2014, he had 145 starts and 31 wins, finishing in the top three 54% of the time in the first half of the year,[ but his knee problems became too severe to continue riding and by July, he announced a "break" in order to have knee replacement surgery. He stated a hope he could return to riding because he was otherwise in good athletic condition. He stated, "In my mind, I'm not finished." Coincidentally, in the same week, Mucho Macho Man was retired from racing,] marking the second time a Stevens break coincided with the retirement of a horse he had ridden to racing success. Following surgery in late July 2014, he returned to riding in morning workouts in mid-October 2014 and accepted mounts for the 2014 Breeders' Cup in the Juvenile Fillies Turf and Breeders' Cup Sprint.
Injuries
Stevens' career as a jockey has been punctuated by a number of significant injuries. His first major accident was a starting gate training incident in 1985 when a horse threw him into the rail, putting him into a coma for 16 hours and causing serious injuries to his shoulder and right knee. In 2003, he suffered major injuries in the Arlington Million when his horse, in first place, spooked at the finish line, throwing him in front of the rest of the field, where one horse stepped on him, resulting in a collapsed lung and neck injuries. He returned to racing 19 days later. Over the years, he had gone through approximately a dozen medical procedures on his right knee and three on his left, mostly arthroscopic surgeries. In addition to his knee problems, he also had assorted surgeries on his right wrist and both shoulders.
By 2014, his right knee required a total knee replacement
Knee replacement, also known as knee arthroplasty, is a surgical procedure to replace the weight-bearing surfaces of the knee joint to relieve pain and disability, most commonly offered when joint pain is not diminished by conservative sources a ...
. Medical testing revealed he also had been riding with a completely torn ACL. Following surgery, Stevens stated that he developed an addiction to the prescription painkillers he was given, so he isolated himself for a week and went off the medication cold turkey, after which he felt that he finally began to fully recover from the surgery. Three months after the operation, he returned to racing, working horses in the morning, and accepted mounts for the 2014 Breeders' Cup.[ On November 22, he won his first race following his surgery, an ]allowance optional claiming
Glossary of North American horse racing:
Additional glossaries at:
*Glossary of Australian and New Zealand punting
*Glossary of equestrian terms
This is a basic glossary of equestrian terms that includes both technical terminology and jargon ...
race at Del Mar racetrack. He returned to graded stakes-winning form with a Grade II win in the Grade II Arcadia Handicap on January 31, 2015:53 and achieved his 5,000th North American win on February 13, 2015.
In late December 2016, Stevens had hip replacement surgery on his left hip. He anticipated a recovery time of about 12 weeks, after which he declared that he intended to return to racing, but indicated that 2017 might be his last year of racing, with the caveat, "unless I come up with a really good 2-year-old who looks like he'll be a major contender for the 2018 Kentucky Derby." He returned to race riding on March 10, and rode a winning horse on March 11, 2017. Due to his multiple joint replacements, "The Bionic Man
''The Six Million Dollar Man'' is an American science fiction and action television series, running from 1973 to 1978, about a former astronaut, USAF Colonel Steve Austin, portrayed by Lee Majors. After a NASA test flight accident, Austin is ...
" became one of his nicknames.
Permanent riding retirement
On November 20, 2018 Stevens announced he was retiring as a jockey for good due to a neck injury that resulted from an accident at Del Mar on November 17. What was initially believed to be a pinched nerve turned out to be more serious. “ e C-4 is up against the spinal cord,” he said, “There won’t be any comeback from this one.” He made the decision after doctors informed him that the spinal injury could lead to a far more serious issue if he were to ever fall again. In 2019, he returned to being a sportscaster, working as a racing analyst for Fox Sports.
Awards
Stevens has won numerous awards and prizes in the horse racing industry, including the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in 1996. In 1997, Stevens entered the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame
The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame was founded in 1950 in Saratoga Springs, New York, to honor the achievements of American Thoroughbred race horses, jockeys, and trainers. In 1955, the museum moved to its current location on Union Av ...
and in 1998, he was voted the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey The Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey is an American thoroughbred horse racing honor for jockeys first awarded in 1971. Part of the Eclipse Awards program, it is awarded annually.
In 1995, Russell Baze was honored with the Eclipse Special Award ...
in the United States. In 1999, he was voted the Mike Venezia Memorial Award
Mike Venezia Memorial Award is an American Thoroughbred horse racing honor given annually by the New York Racing Association to honor a jockey who exemplifies extraordinary sportsmanship and citizenship. The award was created in 1989 to honor the ...
for "extraordinary sportsmanship and citizenship". In 2003, he was a member of the first group of inductees to the Washington Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame.[ ]James Risch
James Elroy Risch ( ; born May 3, 1943) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Idaho since 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he served as lieutenant governor of Idaho under governors Dirk Kemp ...
, Governor of Idaho, proclaimed the week of July 10, 2006, to be Gary Stevens Week. In 2013, he won the Big Sport of Turfdom award from the Turf Publicists of America, recognizing his contributions to the enhancement of Thoroughbred racing news coverage. He was also nominated for that year's Eclipse Award, and his contributions to the success of Mucho Macho Man were noted when that horse was the recipient of the 2013 Secretariat Vox Populi Award.
Statistics
References
*Stevens, Gary with Kaufman, Mervyn, Shoemaker, Bill (foreword) ''The Perfect Ride'' (2002) Citadel
*Del Mar Media Guide
External links
Gary Stevens official website
Profile at National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame
NTRA bio
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stevens, Gary
1963 births
Living people
People from Caldwell, Idaho
American jockeys
American horse racing announcers
Eclipse Award winners
American Champion jockeys
American male actors
United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Boise, Idaho
Capital High School (Boise, Idaho) alumni