Column: For 51-year-old Gary Stevens’ next mount, he plans a winning sermon

Gary Stevens isn’t a jockey. He’s a miracle man. If somebody names a horse Lourdes, Stevens has to be the rider.

One day, he will be racing behind a wall of horses and, instead of maneuvering around, he will just wave his hand and they will part like the Red Sea.

This year’s Breeders’ Cup, racing’s annual lottery ticket, was laid out nicely for Stevens.

He would be in a broadcast booth, using his considerable expertise and credibility for millions of viewers and listeners. He did, after all, win both big races in last year’s Breeders’ Cup, the Distaff and the Classic.

He could wax philosophical, point out nuances and not even get mud on his shoes. Most important, he could do it from an easy chair with an ice bag on his recently replaced right knee.

After all, Stevens is 51, a grandpa, and at the stage of life where he deserves to, in his twilight years, bask in the glow of past success. Hall of Famers are allowed. Jockeys who have won Triple Crown races (nine for Stevens) and well in excess of 5,000 races when you count international competition (4,998 in the U.S.), have a right to an easy chair and historic adulation.

He can even sleep past 6 a.m.

So what’s the story here?

Stevens is going to ride in this weekend’s Breeders’ Cup. Yes, you read that right.

This is the man who came back in 2013 after 7 1/2 years away from riding, having retired because of the bad knee.

This is the man who, in a routine starting gate test at Santa Anita in 1985, was flung from a horse named Irish Crystal, who made a U-turn into the rail and sent Stevens airborne to the hospital. From that, besides the serious right knee and shoulder injuries he suffered, he was in a coma for 16 hours and came out speaking a language not quite English.

“I still struggle to find the words when I get tired at night,” he says.

This is the man who, just before the finish in the 2003 Arlington Million in Chicago, was tossed from his horse and banged around like a rag doll amid 1,000-pound thoroughbreds going 30 mph. That one looked like the end of his racing career. Two years later, his body banged up, he retired for a second time.

But retiring is not Stevens. Not then, not now. He has had more comebacks than Evander Holyfield.

“The original goal was Dec. 26,” Santa Anita’s traditional opening day, Stevens says. “But then, as the knee started to feel good, I got to thinking…”

The chronology is startling.

Stevens had achieved one of the last items on his career bucket list last November at Santa Anita, the host then and again this week of the Breeders’ Cup. That story alone should have been enough to last a lifetime.

He had ridden Mucho Macho Man, at age 50, after his long layoff, for a woman named Kathy Ritvo, who had needed a heart transplant to live, much less train horses. And they had won the $5-million race, richest in the U.S.

Then Stevens cut back on his schedule, as the knee got worse. He rode regularly during the winter/spring Santa Anita meeting. He also rode Candy Boy in the Kentucky Derby.

But the pain became unbearable during a weekend of racing in early July at Monmouth Park.

“I was in extreme pain on the flight home,” Stevens says. “I landed at 9 a.m. and was in the doctor’s office by noon.”

That eventually led to an appointment with Dr. Andrew Yun, who obviously had done his homework and knew he was dealing with the Miracle Man Jockey.

“I sat on the table,” Stevens says. “He pulled my right leg back a little, like when you’re on a horse, and said, ‘How far back do you need to be able to stretch this, not to ride a horse, but to win?’

“Right there, I knew I had the right guy.”

Stevens had the surgery at Saint John’s in Santa Monica on July 25. Five hours after surgery, he was walking down the hall. Two days later, he left the hospital for home.

“I didn’t go out in one of those damn walker things,” he says. “I had a little cane.”

Two weeks ago, he sent a text to trainer and friend Tom Proctor, asking whether he had any horses to work. Proctor answered that he had one he could jog. Proctor’s text said, “You have to learn to crawl before you can walk.”

Soon, the jog became a gallop and the gallop full-fledged works.

Last week, it was announced. Stevens would ride in the Breeders’ Cup.

“I would have been walking into walls by Dec. 26,” he says.

Stevens will ride two Breeders’ Cup races, both for trainer Chad Brown. The first will be on Sivoliere in the Juvenile Fillies Turf on Friday, the second on Bakken in the Sprint on Saturday.

The comeback moment won’t come until about 3:50 p.m. Friday on Sivoliere. Stevens is so ready, he is crawling out of his skin.

“I know what people are saying,” he says. “They say, “Yeah, yeah. Watch out for the knee.’ I need to show them by winning.”

Actually, in a 35-year career that has been distinguished as anybody’s, Stevens doesn’t need to show anything. He just wants to.

It appears that the great driver of race horses is a man driven himself.

For those who have followed his career, a successful Breeders’ Cup weekend, despite what Stevens is returning from, will be no surprise.

They won’t even be particularly stunned if he wanders from the winners’ circle to the infield and starts multiplying loaves and fishes.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com