Philadelphia Story Has a Happy Ending

Before Saturday, Stewart Elliott’s only ride at Churchill Downs came Friday, when he rode a 3-year-old colt to a seventh-place finish in a $47,900 allowance race.

A day later, Elliott, in his second ride here, was aboard another 3-year-old colt -- Smarty Jones -- who won the Kentucky Derby and earned $5,854,800, 10% of which will be headed the 39-year-old jockey’s way. Smarty Jones’ Derby purse was supplemented by a $5-million Oaklawn Park bonus that his owners will receive for their horse’s sweep of two races in Arkansas and the Derby. Smarty Jones set a North American record for most money earned in one race.

Kent Desormeaux, who rode Imperialism, the third-place finisher in the Derby, was asked if he knew Elliott.

“No, but I know him now,” Desormeaux said. “He’s the $6-million man.”

Told that a first-timer in the Derby hadn’t won the race since Ronnie Franklin with Spectacular Bid in 1979, Desormeaux said:

“This is different. Franklin was a kid. This guy’s a mature veteran.... This guy rode [Smarty Jones] like a lizard sitting on a log. He never lost a beat.”

The Canadian-born Elliott, the son of a jockey, grew up in Hong Kong and knew at 16 that he wanted to follow his father into racing. But he has spent his entire career competing at second-rate tracks, and in the mid-1980s, losing a battle with weight, he was forced to quit riding. He became a morning exercise rider, a job that allowed him to carry more weight.

“I was miserable,” he said. “But what else was I going to do? I didn’t know anything else. I didn’t have an education, because I had given up school to devote all my time to riding.”

After a year and a half, Elliott got his weight down and returned to racing. He has won more than 3,000 races, and for four years has been a kingpin at Philadelphia Park.

“I’m so happy for the owners [Patricia and Roy Chapman] and the trainer [John Servis],” Elliott said after the Derby. “They stuck with me and gave me a chance. They could have rode anybody in the world, but they gave me the opportunity to prove myself.”

Coming here to ride for the first time, Elliott had heard about all the Derby traditions.

“When they played ‘My Old Kentucky Home’, it was something,” he said. “People were right. All this is pretty emotional.”

Servis and Elliott are more than a trainer and a jockey for hire. They hunt and fish together when they’re away from Philadelphia Park.

“All of this is unbelievable,” Elliott said. “I can’t find a way to explain it.”

Roy Chapman, who sells Fords in Pennsylvania, had a suggestion for his jockey.

“Maybe you could take that money you made and buy a car with it,” he said.