THOROUGHBRED RACING : Baze Eclipses Jockey Rivals

For winning 433 races, 72 more than any other jockey, Russell Baze received two votes out of 274 cast for the Eclipse Award in 1992.

Although Baze has won 400 races again this year, clinching another national title, the thought that he will do just as badly in another Eclipse vote is not humbugging his Christmas.

“The voting’s up to the guys doing the vote,” Baze said in that aw-shucks, down-home way of his. “It would be nice to get one (an Eclipse Award). But it won’t ruin my life if I never get one.”

Last Sunday at Bay Meadows, on owner David Milch’s T.V. Producer, a 3-year-old gelding who gave Baze five other victories this year, the 36-year-old jockey reached the 400-win mark for the third consecutive year, matching a record set by Kent Desormeaux in 1987-89. When 1994 ends, Baze will lead the country in victories for the third year in a row, equaling the streaks of Desormeaux, Bill Hartack (1955-57) and Pat Day (1982-84).

In 1984, Day won the first of his four Eclipse Awards, missing the 400 mark by one victory and finishing 27 ahead of Baze, who was second in his first year of riding with more than 300.

Day won 36 stakes races, four more than Baze, but, counting all races, Day’s horses earned $7.9 million to Baze’s $4.4 million. That is the distinction Eclipse voters inevitably make when casting ballots. In baseball terms, Baze was hitting singles at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields, while Pat Day was knocking home runs in big races at major tracks all over the country.

“The trainers who win a lot of races but don’t run for the big purses never do much in the Eclipse voting either,” said Ray Harris, who has been Baze’s agent in Northern California since 1980. “Maybe there should be two awards, the one they have now plus one for guys in Russell’s category.”

The National Turf Writers Assn., a partner in the Eclipse Awards voting with the Daily Racing Form and track racing secretaries, will introduce its own award in 1996, for the jockey with the highest winning percentage. The award will be named after Isaac Murphy, the legendary 19th-Century jockey who won the Kentucky Derby three times and won at a 44% clip during a remarkable career.

Baze has never ridden in a Kentucky Derby and has been in a Breeders’ Cup race only once. He has won almost 100 stakes races at Bay Meadows alone, but most of his victories in major races have come in Southern California, including those aboard Both Ends Burning and Hawkster in the Oak Tree Invitational at Santa Anita. Baze was a last-minute replacement for an AWOL Pat Valenzuela in the 1989 Oak Tree. Baze and Hawkster rolled home in world-record time.

His victory with Hawkster came in the middle of a frustrating three-year attempt to carve out a niche on the much tougher Santa Anita-Hollywood Park-Del Mar circuit. Baze won only 286 races in 1989-90, his win percentage sinking to 11.1%, about 15 points below the last three years and seven under his lifetime rate.

“My intention was to stay down there,” he said. “I got off to a good start, but after that business wasn’t so good. The main difference was that I didn’t get a chance to ride many of the better horses.”

In 1992, Baze’ first full year back in Northern California, he won 433 races, seven on one April day at Golden Gate, a record output at a Bay Area track. It’s at these tracks where Harris frequently has a choice of three or four horses in a race for his client. Said leading trainer Jerry Hollendorfer after his T.V. Producer won Sunday: “My only problem with Russell is that I can’t get him enough for my horses.”

Harris said it’s no coincidence that Baze’s three 400-victory years followed his return from Southern California. “Russell really is a good rider,” Harris said. “His time in Los Angeles made him a better rider. He was a tolerant and a patient rider, but after coming back from down there, where there’s such an emphasis on speed, he’s been willing to send his horses more.”

Few suspensions, and fewer injuries, have been the keys for Baze in a 433-win 1992, a 410-win ’93 and a 400 and counting ’94. Since 1980, he has won titles at every Bay Meadows and Golden Gate meet in which he’s ridden, a string of 22 championships that will be extended by the current Bay Meadows meet.

Baze’s 400th victory left him with a lifetime total of 4,734. He rides at 115 pounds, so without a weight problem the probability of riding at least another 10 years is not unrealistic. Let’s see, 400 victories a year for 10 more years . . . that puts him at the threshold of Bill Shoemaker’s record 8,833, providing the redoubtable Laffit Pincay doesn’t get there first.

Baze laughed at the possibility. “I’ll just keep riding as long as I enjoy it,” Baze said. “Until I get injured or until I can’t be successful at the level I’m at.”

Horse Racing Notes

John Giovanni, national manager of the Jockeys’ Guild, is scheduled to meet in New York on Friday with Brian McGrath, commissioner of the Thoroughbred Racing Assns., to see if they can agree to a contract for the jockeys’ health and accident insurance. The TRA made the guild what was called “a final offer” last week and gave the jockeys until Friday to respond. Giovanni discussed the offer with the guild’s executive committee in a conference telephone call Tuesday. The current three-year contract expires Dec. 31. . . . Ron McAnally saddled the winners of three consecutive straight races Wednesday.