Ride of a Lifetime

Like golfers, who seem to remember every shot from every round, most jockeys have exceptional recall. A case in point is Eddie Delahoussaye.

More than 30 years ago, there was an ornery gelding named Brown Shill kicking around the tracks in Louisiana.

“He was a real rogue,” Delahoussaye said recently. “Nobody wanted to ride him. But I was just starting out, and getting about one mount a week, so I took him.”

At Evangeline Downs on Jan. 29, 1968, Delahoussaye, barely 16, rode Brown Shill to victory in a 1 3/16-mile race for $2,000 claimers. Brown Shill’s win price was $27.60.

“He didn’t turn out to be that bad a horse,” Delahoussaye said. “I think I won four races with him that year.”

Tens of thousands of races removed from Brown Shill, and Evangeline Downs, Delahoussaye hasn’t turned out to be that bad a jockey.

There were few wins in 1968 besides the ones with Brown Shill, and for a while a shy, unsure Delahoussaye wondered whether he was pursuing the right trade. But now, a four-digit number--6,000--embroiders his career choice. With his victory aboard Sweetcakesanshakes, a 4-year-old filly, Sunday at Santa Anita, Delahoussaye became the 14th jockey in North America to win 6,000 races.

“I wouldn’t trade my career for anybody’s,” Delahoussaye said. “[The 6,000th victory] was one of my personal goals. But to tell you the truth, I’m just as proud of the fact that I’ve just stayed around as long as I have.”

Starting his 32nd year in the saddle, Delahoussaye, 47, has ridden 36,566 races and his horses have earned more than $170 million in purses.

In a way, it was all nothing more than a good jockey following orders. For coming out of tiny New Iberia, La., riding in the South and the Midwest before moving to Southern California in 1979, Delahoussaye was told early on by his father that he’d get a whipping if he ever failed to ride to win.

Over the years, Delahoussaye’s loyalty to the horses has been matched only by his loyalties to the horsemen.

“Sadly, it’s a game that doesn’t have the loyalties that it used to have,” trainer Eddie Gregson said. “But Eddie still gives you a loyalty that’s hard to beat.”

Last Christmas day, well before Juanita Delahoussaye, his wife of 28 years, and their two children--one a 20ish daughter who has fought physical and mental disabilities all her life--were in gear for the holiday, the jockey was out of their Arcadia home and on the grounds early at Santa Anita. There’s no racing on Christmas, but Gregson had asked Delahoussaye to work one of his 2-year-olds that morning.

“That’s loyalty,” said Gregson, who in 1982 showed some of his own. The owners of Gato Del Sol wanted to fire Delahoussaye and hire Bill Shoemaker after their colt had finished a well-beaten second in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland. Gregson dissuaded them, and nine days later he and Delahoussaye were standing in the winner’s circle at Churchill Downs, after Gato Del Sol had upset the field in the Kentucky Derby.

“Delahoussaye is the only jockey who could have won the Derby with that horse,” Gregson said. “Gato Del Sol was a plodder, a one-pace horse, and Eddie gave him a five-eighths-mile run that was perfect for that race that day.”

The next year, Delahoussaye won the Derby again, with Sunny’s Halo, becoming part of Churchill Downs lore. Only three other jockeys have ever won consecutive Derbies, Isaac Murphy, 1890 and ‘91; Jimmy Winkfield, 1901 and ‘02, and Ron Turcotte, 1972 and ’73.

In 1981, the year before Gato Del Sol, Delahoussaye almost won the Derby with Woodchopper, whose trouble-strewn trip resulted in a last-gasp second-place finish to Pleasant Colony. Then in 1988, Delahoussaye might have been riding the best horse in the Derby, but with no one willing to chase the filly Winning Colors early, he and Risen Star had to settle for third place.

Risen Star stamped himself as the best 3-year-old of his generation by winning the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes in the ensuing weeks.

In the last 10 years, Delahoussaye has ridden only twice in the Derby.

“I rode my first Derby in 1975 [a 13th-place finish with the longshot Honey Mark] and I told myself then that I’d never go back unless I had a horse with a real chance,” he said. “I’ve pretty much stuck with that ever since.”

The last five years, Delahoussaye’s air travel has been restricted, and his local riding appearances have been reduced, by sinusitis and allergy problems. Sometimes, he’s unable to honor out-of-town stakes commitments.

That situation partly contributed to the end of a 16-year tie-in with trainer Neil Drysdale, who saddled four of Delahoussaye’s seven Breeders’ Cup winners, including A.P. Indy in the Classic that led to a horse-of-the-year title in 1992.

“We had a good run together,” Delahoussaye said. “But it’s a business, and Neil’s got to run his end like a business. I don’t blame him for that.”

Delahoussaye even had to postpone the interview for this story a day because of a sinus flare-up. He could ride, but he could barely talk.

“I don’t know what I’m allergic to,” he said. “I’ve never let them test me too much to find out. I’d rather be a little uncomfortable than let them turn me into a pin cushion.”

Last year, Delahoussaye’s across-the-board popularity with trainers hadn’t waned. He won 16 stakes in Southern California, for 13 trainers.

“He has an innate way of getting horses to run for him,” Gregson said. “He’s ‘the Mind,’ which is what they call him up in the press box, and he never loses his cool. He’ll be on the turn with your horse and you’ll see a couple of horses pass him and you’ll say, ‘What’s going on?’ Then he’ll come back on with your horse. He’s amazing.”

Usually, Delahoussaye gets the job done without much use of the whip.

“It’s uncanny the way he gets horses to relax,” trainer Bruce Headley said. “He’s great at judging horses in front of him and around him, and being able to tell what they’ve got left. He gets more out of a horse with less whip than any rider I’ve ever seen. He just taps them and they fly.”

Delahoussaye has talked about retirement from time to time, but now he can’t say just when that will occur.

“I’d love to train horses when I get out of riding,” he said. “But I don’t think that’ll ever happen. The game has changed so much from the ownership side. You’d have to get somebody behind you with a whole lot of money, and there aren’t a lot of those guys around.”

He is likely to ride off into retirement, however, never having won an Eclipse Award, which is a paradox, because he was voted into the Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 1993. The Eclipse is an annual citation, the Hall of Fame recognition for lifetime achievement. Hard to figure getting the big one without having won the other one.

“The closest I came [to winning an Eclipse] was the year [1978] I led the country in wins,” Delahoussaye said. “A lot of people were telling me I was sure to win. But darned if they didn’t give it to the guy [Darrel McHargue] who had the most purses.”

Delahoussaye was a mainstay in Kentucky in 1978. That year’s Eclipse Award might have slipped away, but his 384 winners were the lift-off that sent him to California in 1979. The competition out here was a jockey colony that included Bill Shoemaker, Laffit Pincay, Sandy Hawley and a young Chris McCarron. They all beat Delahoussaye to the doors of the 6,000-win club, but now he’s right there with them.

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Ride of a Lifetime

Bill Shoemaker: 8,833

Laffit Pincay*: 8,694

Pat Day*: 7.382

David Gall*: 7,263

Angel Cordero: 7,057

Jorge Velasquez: 6,795

Chris McCarron*: 6,732

Russell Baze*: 6,481

Sandy Hawley: 6,449

Larry Snyder: 6,388

Carl Gambardella: 6,349

Earlie Fires*: 6,038

Johnny Longden: 6,032

Eddie Delahoussaye*: 6,000

Sources: National Thoroughbred Racing Assn. and Daily Racing Form.