BACK ON TRACK : During His Yearlong Suspension, Kip Didericksen Decided He Had to Return

When Kip Didericksen rode Beda Cheng to victory recently in the Mr. California Handicap at Los Alamitos, the connection was not lost on the 22-year-old quarter horse jockey.

The last time Didericksen rode Beda Cheng was in July 1987. The last time Didericksen was supposed to have ridden the horse was Aug. 2, 1987.

“That was the horse,” Didericksen said a few days after the Mr. California.

What Didericksen meant was that Beda Cheng was the horse he had been scheduled to ride in the ninth race--a $7,700 allowance--at Hollywood Park on that August day more than a year ago. Minutes before post time, however, state investigators swooped down on Didericksen, confiscated an illegal battery--an electronic prodding device that arguably makes horses run faster--and took him off the mount.

Using a battery is one of the most flagrant jockey violations in racing. Soon after the Beda Cheng incident, state racing authorities suspended Didericksen for a year, fined him $2,000 and put him on probation for another year.

This wasn’t just another jockey who tried to take an edge. At the time, Didericksen was the sport’s national leader with more than 125 winners for the year, and his purse total of more than $600,000 ranked him third in that category. The year before, Didericksen had led the country with 309 wins and had ranked second on the money list with $1.7 million.

After Didericksen’s 1-year suspension was announced a year ago, many horsemen thought that he would go home to Boise, Ida., and never be heard from again. At 5 feet 10 inches, Didericksen is exceptionally tall for a jockey. In recent years, he has looked like a 117-pound rider walking around in a 150-pound body. Long before, Didericksen had grown too big to ride thoroughbreds, and it was widely believed that a year out of the saddle would be his physical undoing in quarter horse racing, as well.

Didericksen himself had doubts about his future as a jockey. He fished and hunted deer and pheasant for a month, then enrolled in some business and real estate courses at Boise State University. He had saved much of the money he had earned since arriving at Los Alamitos in 1984, and was prepared to go into business for himself, or possibly become a rancher, far removed from the roar of the quarter horse crowds.

But around Christmas time last year, Didericksen checked his weight and found that he had gained only 5 pounds.

“That’s when I decided that I was still small enough to come back,” Didericksen said. “Those first few months were going to be the hardest, because that’s when it’s the coldest in Boise, a time when you’re less likely to exercise--and might have a tendency to gain weight. But those months were pretty much behind me, and with only a few pounds to lose, I knew it would be easier as the weather got warmer.”

Didericksen estimates that the year’s suspension cost him $300,000. Besides the money, though, there were other things luring him back.

“There were some bad newspaper articles, both at home and in L.A.,” Didericksen said. “And there was a lot of talk in both places about what a smart kid I was to try to get away with what I did. Nobody said anything to my face, but the talk got back to me. People were messing with my confidence, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to come back.”

Kip’s father is Duayne Didericksen, a former trainer who is now general manager and director of racing at Les Bois Park, a small track in Boise. Steve Treasure, one of the game’s premier jockeys, lived with the Didericksens one summer and became Kip’s idol. Blane Schvaneveldt, the nonpareil of quarter horse trainers, has been Duayne Didericksen’s friend for years and gave Kip a job galloping horses during a vacation at Los Alamitos one summer.

The day Kip Didericksen was nailed with his buzzer at Hollywood Park, he couldn’t wait to get home to his Anaheim apartment to call his parents with the bad news. That might sound strange, but Didericksen was looking for a quick-fix catharsis. But except for giving his parents the gory details--facts that Didericksen is reluctant to discuss now--the young jockey was wasting his time with the call. Duayne Didericksen had already heard.

“You know what they say about bad news traveling the fastest,” the father said.

Duayne Didericksen said he gave his son little advice during the winter.

“You have to know the kid,” the father said. “No matter what we could have told him, once he got his mind set, that would have been it.”

Kip Didericksen’s mind was set on resuming his riding career, and he worked at a farm early this year to stay fit. On Aug. 13 this year, on his eighth mount since the suspension ended, he not only won his first race but also got Zure Hope Again home in the Pacific Classics Derby.

“There was some pressure,” Didericksen said. “I had the best horse (at 3-5 odds) and was supposed to win. And not only that, it was the first stake mount I had since coming back.”

Didericksen might have been over-riding in those first weeks, but he seems to have settled in nicely now. He’s won six stakes, he finished second in the Los Alamitos standings--with 13 more victories than Steve Treasure--for the meeting that ended Sept. 10 and he’s leading the current meet, having won four races last Friday night.

Last Sunday at the Los Angeles County Fair at Fairplex Park, Didericksen won the $180,00 Breeders Futurity with Sail On Hawaii, who is trained by Bob Baffert.

“I told Kip that he would be my No. 1 rider when he came back,” Baffert said. “It’s a great pleasure to work with a jockey like this. He’s changed quite a bit. It used to be that if I used somebody besides him on my horses, he’d pout. But now he understands that one rider doesn’t always fit every horse.”

But there are still the inevitable catcalls. The other night, Didericksen finished down the track with an odds-on favorite, and a fan yelled, “You forgot your buzzer!” as the jockey brought the horse back. Didericksen has not dismounted and charged the stands yet, and he seems conditioned not to.

He even saw some positives in the yearlong suspension. “I was fighting weight, and I was depressed when it happened,” Didericksen said. “In the time away, I got over the idea that I had to win every race I rode. I got away from the life style in California for a while, and I think that was good. It cost me a lot of money, but there’s only so much you can do with money.”

His first race back, there were cheers as well as boos as Didericksen brought his horse on to the track.

“I know that I did a bad thing,” Didericksen said. “I was considered a hero, and I hurt the business by what I did. I owe it to the business to come back.”

The reaction to Didericksen’s return has been mixed among other jockeys, but he said: “I don’t think there are any grudges in the (jockeys’) room.”

The year’s probation--through August of next year--is academic. “Even after that, I know that if I ever do something wrong again, it’ll be all over with,” Didericksen said.