A TRAGIC RIDE : Robbie Davis Is Learning to Cope With Memory of Fellow Jockey’s Fatal Spill

For more than seven months last year, jockey Robbie Davis was having, by his own admission, the best year of his life.

In August, Davis’ wife, Marguerite, had delivered Robert Glen Davis Jr., their third child and first son.

By October, Davis’ horses had won 231 races and earned $7.1 million. Davis ranked sixth in the nation in purses. He was riding Mercedes Won, one of the country’s best 2-year-olds, and Pay the Butler, a prominent grass horse.

But on the afternoon of Oct. 13, Robbie Davis’ best year became his worst.

In the fifth race of the day at Belmont Park, Davis was riding Drums in the Night, a 3-year-old, against nine other New York-breds for a $31,000 purse.

Drums in the Night was an established front-runner, but in his last race, three weeks previously, Davis had been able to win with the horse through early restraint and by bringing him from off the pace.

So on Oct. 13, Davis, 27, decided to use the same tactics.

Davis talked about this the other day in the jockeys’ room at Santa Anita, still second-guessing himself.

“If I had let the horse run, we wouldn’t have been in that spot,” Davis said.

The spot was along the backstretch. Mr. Walter K., a 3-year-old ridden by Mike Venezia, was running off the fence, ahead of Drums in the Night. Mr. Walter K. broke down and Venezia went down on the left side. For Drums in the Night and Davis, there was no place to go but over the fallen Venezia. The 43-year-old jockey was trampled and killed instantly.

The fifth race on Oct. 13 was the last race of the day--Belmont canceled the rest of the program because of the tragedy--and for a while it looked as though it might also be the last race of Robbie Davis’ life.

Davis never really thought about quitting, though. He just needed time. Time for the nightmares to go away, time for the remorse over Venezia to subside.

Last week at Santa Anita, almost five months after Venezia’s death, Davis resumed riding. On Wednesday, he dropped his whip at the top of the stretch in the first race he rode, but on Friday, on his fifth mount, he had a winner, and on Sunday he booted a 30-1 shot home.

“I had butterflies until I got on the track with that first horse,” Davis said. “That first horse ran up on another horse’s heels and I lost the stick. I had more confidence the second time. I got my hands back.”

Although Santa Anita was the first track that a young Davis from Pocatello, Ida., had ever seen, he had only ridden there once, winning the Santa Ana Handicap with Videogenic in 1986. His career with thoroughbreds started in Arizona, and after winning only 13 races in six months in Louisiana, he went to New York one winter and stayed after winning about 170 races.

Last December, Davis bought a 35-foot mobile home, and he and his family left their home on Long Island, N.Y., and headed West.

There were several reasons for the trip: A second honeymoon, the chance to spend Christmas with his mother in Kansas City for the first time in eight years and the opportunity to visit relatives and friends in Idaho, where a couple of horsemen still there had given him an entree into quarter-horse riding in 1981.

Davis had seen a psychiatrist because of lingering anguish over Venezia, and was told to find inner peace through his family.

Davis went skiing in Colorado and early this year started thinking about riding again.

“In 1981, I helped (trainer) Jerry Fanning break young horses in Victorville,” Davis said. “I had always wanted to try riding here.”

Not only that, he would be 3,000 miles away from the track where Venezia was killed.

“I talked to Mike day in and day out when we rode together in New York, and he became like a brother to me,” Davis said. “I looked up to him. He was a good family man, a guy who was always taking his kids into New York City to show them things.

“And he was sharp. He represented the jockeys in a lot of union matters, and there was never any bull about him. He said his piece when he had to.”

Davis said that there were only two horses that trailed Venezia’s mount that day at Belmont, and he was riding one of them.

“I didn’t know who the rider was, but I knew in the first jump that I had killed him,” Davis said. “The back legs of my horse came together as we went over him.

“I just killed him. I was frantic. . . . And then to find out that it was Mike. If only I had run to the front with that horse.”

Davis collapsed at the memorial service in the winner’s circle at Belmont a couple of days later. He has had recurring nightmares about the race, too, except that he’s in Venezia’s role, falling off the horse.

“You start to think a lot about yourself when something like this happens,” Davis said. “The boot could have been on the other foot.”

Three days after the accident, Davis was supposed to ride Pay the Butler for trainer Bobby Frankel in the Rothmans International at Woodbine in Canada. He told his agent, Lenny Goodman, that he couldn’t go, adding that he didn’t know when he would ride again.

Davis jogged horses at an indoor arena while he was in Idaho and began working horses a couple of weeks ago for Frankel at Santa Anita.

When he arrived here, Davis told himself that he would stay just until the end of the Santa Anita season, next month, but now he says he’ll be here indefinitely. He gained eight pounds, to 116, while he was away from the track, and skiing made his legs so thick that he had trouble getting into his jeans.

“I’m still a little weak and unfit, but I’m getting there,” Davis said.

For an agent, he has signed on with Jeff Franklin, who used to work for Gary Stevens.

“Jeff and I have the same ideas,” Davis said. “I had gotten fed up with trying to be the leading rider everywhere I rode. I’ve told myself that I can live with myself without being 1-2-3 out here.”

Davis knows that winning at Santa Anita will be more difficult than in New York, where he was established. Despite missing the last 2 1/2 months of the 1988 season, he still finished ninth in the national money standings.

“The jockey colony here has so much more depth than it does in New York,” Davis said. “There must be 12 or 13 super-good riders out here. In New York, there were probably only three or four.”

But even without winning races in bunches, Davis believes that he has made the right move.

“The people are very nice here, and it’s a big change in scenery,” he said. “That’s awfully important for my mental well-being.”