The secret to getting a ride in the Kentucky Derby
LOUISVILLE, Ky. ā For 72 hours after the major Kentucky Derby prep races were complete this month, the horse racing world was in limbo.
Mike Smith, the sportās top big-money jockey, had just been aboard Omaha Beach during an impressive win in the Arkansas Derby. A week earlier, however, heād ridden Roadster in the Santa Anita Derby for Bob Baffert. Given the fact theyād teamed up last year to win the Triple Crown with Justify, many in the industry assumed Omaha Beach trainer Richard Mandella might be in the market for a new rider.
āI didnāt know,ā Mandella said. āBob Baffert has had him on some great horses, more than I have.ā
Doug Bredar, however, accurately predicted Smithās decision would go the other way.
As the agent for jockey Florent Geroux, whose potential Derby mounts had all fizzled out, he was kind of counting on it.
āI think I was in the minority, but you get kind of an instinct from the people I talked to that (Smith) would take Omaha Beach,ā Bredar said. āI made it clear to Bob that we would really, really like to ride Roadster.ā
For Bredar, booking rides for Geroux is essentially a 365-day-a-year job, albeit one that has been made easier by his ascent as one of the nation's top jockeys. But even for an in-demand rider like Geroux, the process of getting a Kentucky Derby mount can evolve over several months, take numerous twists and turns and often rests on the ability of an agent to position the client for unforeseen opportunities.
GET TO KNOW THE FIELD:Ranking the 20 horses in the field for the Kentucky Derby
A SAFE BET:How one of the world's most successful horseplayers keeps beating the odds at the track
āThereās a lot of luck involved,ā said Ron Anderson, who has won the Derby four times as an agent for Chris Antley, Gary Stevens and currently Joel Rosario, who won it with Orb in 2013. āAnd thereās a story involved in all of them.ā
Unlike their counterparts in other sports, agents for jockeys donāt negotiate contracts or deal with salaries. Every rider is an independent contractor who collects a fixed percentage of their purse money, and the job of the agent is to put them on the horse with the best chance to win every race possible. And it doesn't matter whether that's the Kentucky Derby or a $15,000 claiming race on a Thursday at Aqueduct in New York.
Doing that effectively requires an agent not only to manage relationships with dozens of trainers but have intimate knowledge of every horse in every barn at their home track, analyze races on a daily basis, filter through scuttlebutt about which jockeys are aligned with which horses and be aware of potential scheduling conflicts that might give their client an opportunity to ride a good horse that someone else had been on previously.
That, in fact, is how Smith ended up on Omaha Beach in the first place after Flavien Prat had ridden him in his first five races. Prat had also been riding Galilean over the winter and committed to ride him in the Rebel Stakes before Mandella decided to send Omaha Beach to the same race, opening up the mount for Smith and thus the mount on Roadster for Geroux. Prat, meanwhile, appears to have lost that particular game of musical saddles as heāll ride long-shot Country House in the Derby.
āThe funny part is this occurs almost on a daily basis around the country at every track,ā Bredar said. āThatās why my phone never leaves my side and itās completely charged and ready to go for whatever unexpected event may occur. Itās nonstop.ā
BETTING TIPS:How to bet and win money (hopefully) at the Kentucky Derby
Those inherent conflicts, and the scarcity of true contenders for a race like the Derby, explain why agents are allowed by tracks to represent a maximum of two jockeys at a time and typically only one who is considered high profile.
Thatās one reason jockeysā agents can command 25% of their clientsā winnings, which would translate to about $46,500 for the agent of the Derby-winning jockey this year.
"You think an agent as like Jerry Maguire and that type of thing," Bredar said. "If you have LeBron James or some major superstar and youāre in a position to just get them a long-term contract, youāre set. Our situation is very, very different. We are on almost a handshake agreement from race to race."
But being in position to land a mount that could win the Derby is, in some ways, part of the day-to-day grind of being on the backstretch. For Anderson, that means every summer and fall trying to get Rosario on the back of as many promising 2-year-olds as possible, particularly from barns of trainers like Baffert or Todd Pletcher or Chad Brown, who typically have multiple Derby prospects.
That's what happened in August when Rosario, who is primarily based in New York, flew cross-country to sub for injured Victor Espinoza on Accelerate in the Pacific Classic and just so happened to pick up the mount on Game Winner, who was making his career debut in a maiden race that day. Two Grade 1 victories later, including the Breedersā Cup Juvenile, and Rosario had his Derby mount.
"If I wasnāt involved with Game Winner, I'd have been trying to position myself when (Smith) made his decision," Anderson said. "If heād have made the call to go with Baffertās horse, Iād have tried to be in a position to sit behind him on Dick Mandellaās horse because they both have a legitimate chance. Thereās a lot of luck with the entire business, but lots of times the Derby has to do with the entities like the Bob Bafferts and guys who have more chances and more bodies to kind of be involved in these races.
Anderson's Derby history is a good example of that. In 1995, Anderson was in Hong Kong with Stevens, who had been offered a contract to ride there. Much like his predicament this year, Smith had ridden two horses to wins in big prep races and decided his Derby mount would be Talkin Man, opening up a mount on D. Wayne Lukas-trained Thunder Gulch.
Anderson got Stevens out of his Hong Kong contract, returned to the U.S. and ended up winning the Derby on him. He recalled a similar scenario two years later with Baffert-trained Silver Charm, who had been ridden by Chris McCarron in two California prep races. McCarron, however, didnāt fully commit to Silver Charm because he was also the regular rider for Ron McAnally-trained Hello, causing Baffert to replace him with Stevens before the Santa Anita Derby.
Though McCarron ultimately made the wrong decision as Silver Charm won the Derby and Preakness, it was an understandable one at the time because he was the first call for all of McAnallyās top horses. Part of the job of the agent, Anderson said, is to make sure picking a Derby mount doesnāt jeopardize those lucrative relationships that yield wins every other day of the year.
āIt does get a little political when youāre riding for an entity at a lot of other spots and youāre going to (tick) them off by taking off their horse for that day,ā Anderson said. āSometimes when you have an option to ride a better horse, you know what, sometimes you just canāt make that move so thereās all kinds of intricacies to what goes on.
āBut the Derby, if you think one can win, the rules change a little bit.ā