INAUGURAL RIDE ON ELITE TURF : Jockey Melody Hamilton Is a Long Shot Among Legends

As the trumpets announced Friday’s sixth race at Santa Anita, Melody Hamilton of Sherman Oaks was just minutes away from making what racing fans call a maiden run, her professional debut as an apprentice jockey.

Inside the paddock area, trainer Danny Velasquez boosted her onto Stratford East, a strapping English gelding whose only other outing on American soil had failed to inspire the odds makers. The tote board was listing Hamilton’s chances of winding up in the winner’s circle as 60-to-1.

A slight woman at 5-2, 100 pounds, Hamilton looked like a child as she sat stiffly atop the haunches of the muscular, half-ton thoroughbred. Wearing the royal blue-and-white silks of owners Chris and Arlene Paasch, she guided the horse toward the tunnel leading to the track. On the way, she passed a bronze statue of Bill Shoemaker, the legendary jockey who has won more thoroughbred races than any rider in history.

Hamilton and Stratford East emerged from the tunnel and into the hazy sunshine. Fans lining the rail sized her up as she eased her mount into a trot and coerced him toward the starting gate for the 6 1/2-furlong race. It took only a few minutes for all nine 3-year-olds to settle into their stalls. Seconds before the start, Hamilton, at the pole position, stood slightly in her stirrups and peered to her right.

What she saw was a Who’s Who of jockey’s, the elite of thoroughbred racing. Her competition in this her first race would be Chris McCarron, Eddie Delahoussaye, Laffit Pincay Jr. and Gary Stevens. If that wasn’t intimidating enough, there in stall No. 8, poised atop the favorite, Royal Treasure, was the legend himself. The statue had come to life. Hamilton was riding against Bill Shoemaker.

When the gates flew open and the horses bolted onto the dirt track, the tote board flashed the final odds: Royal Treasure was now 2-1, Stratford East 80-1.

Most of the patrons at Santa Anita were expecting Shoemaker to win his 8,523rd race, and hardly anyone was giving Hamilton a shot at winning her first. Of a total betting pool of $374,000, only $2,200 had been wagered on her horse to win.

But long shots are nothing new to Hamilton. The odds of her even getting a mount at a major league racing establishment like Santa Anita, by her own admission, were a million-to-one.

Unlike even the big New York tracks, Santa Anita is almost a private club for great jockeys who monopolize the best horses. Apprentices seldom get a chance--aside from Hamilton, there were only two other apprentices riding in Friday’s races.

But Hamilton’s problem at Santa Anita goes beyond inexperience. The only thing worse than being an apprentice at the Arcadia track is being a woman apprentice. “It’s very hard for a girl to get started,” Velasquez said. “Especially here.”

A woman hasn’t won a race at Santa Anita since Joanna Morgan booted Wheat to a three-length victory in 1978.

Occasionally, a journeyman woman jockey like Joy Scott and Vicki Aragon--both, like Hamilton, from the Valley--manages to get a mount at Santa Anita, but their horses have never been confused with Man O’ War. Even Aragon, one of the top jockeys at Golden Gate Park in the Bay Area, has difficulty finding a ride at Santa Anita, and often must resort to galloping horses in the morning to make her expenses.

Scott, 27, twice the leading rider at the Fresno Fairgrounds, was surprised when she arrived at the track Friday morning and discovered that she had been named to ride in the fourth race aboard Hangover Honey, a 3-year-old filly that had never won a race.

“I get horses that nobody else wants to ride, and I mean nobody,” said Scott, who rode Hangover Honey to ninth place. “Some of my horses go off at 250-1. The big jocks get all the good horses, even if there are other jockeys just as capable. It’s like a Gucci bag. People buy it for its name. I guess horse owners get a bigger thrill if their horse is ridden by Laffit or the Shoe.”

Hamilton, 32, worked nearly two years as an exercise girl before the owners of Stratford East gave her the chance to ride her first race. “Everybody had been so discouraging,” she said. “They told me, ‘You have to go somewhere else. You can’t race here.’ That’s the attitude around here. They think women aren’t strong enough. But finesse is the thing. Shoe isn’t strong, but he’s got finesse.”

Hamilton knew two weeks ago that she would be riding Stratford East. But even on the morning of the race, her nervous energy hadn’t begun percolating--the primary reason she’s known as “mellow Melody” around Barn 58, where Velasquez stables 20 thoroughbreds. It was Velasquez, a former top jockey, who noticed her exercising horses about a year and a half ago and asked her to work for him.

“She had the style I liked,” said Velasquez, one of the few jockeys not bothered when women began to race in the late 1960s. “She’s also a hard worker and I like people like that. That’s the way I was. If someone says, ‘Pick up that manure,’ you’ve got to do it.”

For the past year, Velasquez said, “She’s been bugging me to put her on a horse. I’ve never used a woman jockey, and I told her I’m not going to push to get her a mount. If an owner came to me and asked for her, I’d let her ride. That’s what happened. Chris and Arlene like Melody. Their horse reacts well to her. So they asked me and I said OK.

“Melody deserves a chance, but I told her, ‘After this race, you have to decide if you want to stay here or go somewhere else to ride. It’ll be very difficult to make it around here.’ ”

Although she has ridden horses since age 3, Hamilton didn’t think she would ever realize her dream of becoming a jockey. After studying veterinary medicine at Pierce College, she married and had two children. Her oldest is 7. After a divorce, she used a contact at the Los Angeles Polo Club to get a job exercising horses at Santa Anita.

“She was always such a great rider,” said her mother, Paula, a former Las Vegas showgirl who performs around town as a Marilyn Monroe look-alike. “I remember when she was 7, we were riding in the hills and got to a steep hillside. I couldn’t even get my horse to budge, but Melody jogged down on hers.”

Before the race, Paula was concerned about how the other jockeys would react to Melody. In the overnight entries, the rider on Stratford East was listed as “M. Hamilton.” It so happens that there is a jockey at Bay Meadows named Martin Hamilton. The confusion, Paula thought, wouldn’t last long.

“When they see that long, blond ponytail under the cap, they’ll know it’s a girl,” she said.

At Barn 58, a hot walker named Sonja Roberts expressed confidence in Hamilton’s ability and said, “I just hope she doesn’t have any trouble out there with the boys.”

An hour before the sixth race, Hamilton, still saying she wasn’t nervous, sat back on a couch and relaxed in the women’s jockey room behind the paddock. In her head, Hamilton went over the race. Stratford East, she knew, would not break out in front and stay there. Bred for endurance, he would feel comfortable in the middle of the pack but, she added, “He does have speed, and I think we’ve got a shot.”

For luck, some friends at the track gave Shoemaker’s pants and McCarron’s shoes to Hamilton. “The word really got around fast that I was racing, and everybody who works on the backside knows it,” she said, adding with a wink, “The jockeys are probably making plans now to steer clear of me.” She laughed. “I’ve never met any of those guys, but I can’t wait to race against them. They ride clean and straight.”

Just before she left, she looked around the room. It was built in the early 1970s, she said, by one of the Vanderbilts for a woman jockey named Robyn Smith. “Horrendous, isn’t it,” Hamilton said about the red-flowered wallpaper, red-plaid couches and orange carpeting.

Hamilton went outside into a barn area, where her mount was waiting patiently with its owners. Chris and Arlene Paasch treat their horses almost like household pets. Nuzzling Stratford East, which was wearing blinders, they were asked why they picked Hamilton.

“She rides our horse well every day, and the trainer told us she’s capable of riding him in a race, so we decided to give her a try.” Chris said. “I don’t think being a woman should make a difference.”

Paula Hamilton was waiting for her daughter at the paddock. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away,” she said. Armed with two cameras and binoculars, she was making sure that the moment would be recorded for posterity. When the horses were called to the track, she walked backwards down the tunnel, ahead of Melody, snapping her cameras and oblivious to the hoofs that were landing perilously close to her Reeboks.

“Melody can take care of herself on the track,” Paula said. “Anyway, she told me it’s safer during a race than it is during a workout when horses are going in all different directions.”

As soon as the horses left the starting gate, Paula caused more commotion than the thundering herd on the track. When Stratford East momentarily went into the lead on the backstretch, a confused Paula tried taking pictures with her binoculars and then fumbled for her cameras, yelling all the while and bouncing up and down.

Halfway through the race, Stratford East fell back, then made a move before getting crowded out down the stretch. Shoemaker rode Royal Treasure across the finish line to win the race.

Hamilton came in sixth, two lengths out of the money. Paula, expecting miracles, hid her disappointment. Shoemaker, in a hurry after the race, didn’t have time to talk about Hamilton. But Melody was happy with her performance, Velasquez satisfied.

“She did all right,” he said. “I tell you what. I was a lot more nervous than she was. One thing about her. She’s cool, real cool.”

Hamilton brushed away a few crumbs of dirt that had been sprayed on her face during the race. She was asked if she had decided whether to remain at Santa Anita or try a track that was more open to women jockeys.

“I’m going to stay here,” she said. “I found out today that I belong.”