Jockey’s Brushes With Police Recounted

In the months before jockey Chris Antley was killed, Pasadena police twice visited his home, once finding methamphetamine equipment and later taking a report that he had threatened to kill his pregnant wife, police records show.

As detectives continue to hunt for the killer of the two-time Kentucky Derby winner, they released reports Wednesday detailing police contacts with Antley since last summer.

Antley, 34, was found dead in his Pasadena home Saturday with severe head trauma. An autopsy was inconclusive, and further tests were expected to take six to eight weeks.

Cmdr. Mary Schander said Wednesday that Antley’s death was not the result of a burglary gone wrong or “a random act of violence.” Antley, she said, had been targeted.

The reports show that Pasadena police arrested him for drunk driving shortly before 4 p.m. July 26 on Colorado Boulevard. A breath test showed his blood alcohol level was 0.26%, more than three times the legal limit.

In September, Antley’s wife Natalie telephoned Pasadena police from New York, where she worked for ABC Sports, and asked officers to check on his welfare because he hadn’t returned her calls. Natalie Antley warned the dispatcher that her husband had a substance abuse problem, a police report shows.

Antley told officers who went to the house that he was mad at his wife. The officers, the report says, noticed that he seemed to be under the influence of drugs.

Antley admitted first said he had used drugs the night before, but then admitted “it was a couple of hours ago,” the report said. Asked if the man with him at the house, Timothy Wylie Tyler Jr., 24, was under the influence, Antley responded: “Yes. Tyler brought the bag of meth and we were both doing it.”

Antley “then opened a drawer located to the left of the stove and retrieved a clear plastic sandwich baggie with an off-white crystalline powder inside,” the officer reported. Antley also retrieved a baggie of what appeared to be marijuana.