It’s Worth Breaking a Rule to Write About This Guy

I apologize for this. I promised not to write about horse racing anymore because the first thing most people say to me, once they’ve gotten past the name-calling, is “Stop writing about horse racing.”

The second thing most people say, of course, is just stop writing, so as you can see, I can’t always abide by what people say.

But I agree with them when it comes to horse racing because of all the cheating, or suspicion of cheating, in a sport that lost the public years ago and can’t quite figure out how to get it back.

Santa Anita had the sports audience in L.A. all to itself Monday, and attracted -- on a day when they were passing out free baseball caps -- an Avengers-like crowd of 12,676.

I returned to the track Monday to spend time with jockey Alex Solis, one of L.A.’s top athletes, although most people probably wouldn’t recognize him if he were standing next to them.

Of course, that doesn’t make those people any different from the folks who have the power to promote horse racing, the sport’s own Hall of Fame, which has been unable to figure out how to honor its own.

I could explain the process, but it’s complicated, probably favors those who do their business on the East Coast, it’s horse racing, and who really cares?

I care about Solis, though, because the L.A. community is better off for having such a pro athlete who calls this area home.

Horse racing hasn’t figured this out. The more publicity someone such as Solis gets, the better chance racing has of making a connection with sports fans who appreciate growing up with someone so dedicated to achieving greatness, the bonus, in this case, maybe getting a little closer to the man as well as the athlete.

Ask Solis about the Hall of Fame -- its confusing induction process, the real potential of being overlooked -- and he says, “If my four kids see me as a great father, that’s enough for me.”

He likes to race on the weekend, then join his kids to bowl. He talks about the balance in his life, choking up when he mentions his wife, Sheila, and the job she’s done to keep the family together.

Ask him about his career, and he talks about the future of his children. “I want my kids to do something with their lives,” he said. “I tell them, ‘Find your passion; feel like you’re doing something with your life.’ ”

If it’s a passionate example they need ... three times a week, “I run an hour up Mt. Wilson, and then hike the rest of the way,” he said. “It gives me the chance to get away and think not only about what I need to do to improve in horse racing, but in my life as well. It’s like I tell my kids, ‘Do whatever makes you happy and stronger.’ ”

Ask him anything and somehow it always gets back to his kids. “I tell them, ‘Live your own life, set your own goals, find your own identity, and fulfill what God sent you here to do.’ ”

Yikes -- I find myself writing about horse racing and writing nice things about a local athlete at the same time. I’m pretty sure that won’t happen again.

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TO WRAP it up, though, this superstar has already won more than 4,000 races, and that’s riding against the best the sport has to offer in Hall of Fame jockeys such as Bill Shoemaker, Chris McCarron, Eddie Delahoussaye, Mike Smith, Kent Desormeaux, Gary Stevens, Julie Krone and Laffit Pincay Jr.

He finished second in the Kentucky Derby three times in a span of four years, and this year is sitting on the West Coast’s top Derby hopeful, Brother Derek.

He hasn’t had to overcome drug use, so he doesn’t have a comeback story to tell, hasn’t had a controversy to spice up his resume, and has always shied away from promoting himself.

Yet he has won 19 riding titles in Southern California, began his career as the leading rider in Florida, and has already bagged the richest race in the world in Dubai. He also won the first Shoemaker Award for his Breeders’ Cup performance here a few years ago, and there’s still some debate about entering the Hall of Fame?

He’s at the top of his business, all right, 41 years old and with two titanium rods in his back along with eight screws, so when someone says a guy has to have a screw or two loose to jump on the back of 1,200-pound horse, he laughs and says they’re not far off.

“You have to be real crazy, stupid or truly love it to do this,” Solis said, and when you think about jumping on the back of a 1,200-pound animal and then moving in and out of traffic in a highly competitive situation every day, sometimes five or six times a day, the survivors really are something.

“This is the talent God gave me -- to get along with a horse,” he said. “Now, would I like to be in the Hall of Fame? That would be wonderful. I’m just flattered to be mentioned. But if I don’t get in, I won’t be committing suicide.”

It’s a sport that seems intent on killing itself, so I think I know how this story will end.

So I guess it’s back to interviewing Kwame Brown & Co.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Patrick Tomlinson:

“I’ve been a hard-core Laker FAN since watching Jerry West in person at the Forum. It’s 35-plus years of good times and bad. Your writing of Laker teams is bad, negative, sickening to read (junk). You should leave L.A. and don’t come back. Take a long look at what you write about the Lakers.”

You expect me to read what I write?

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.