A family full of horse sense

He is 87 now, retired for 20 years from the business of being a jockey agent. He lives in Arcadia, with his wife, Mercedes, whom he met at Santa Anita, where she was an usherette.

From that union came a son, Craig, who also became a jockey agent, and a daughter, Shannon, who was not named after the city in Ireland, but after a racehorse.

From Craig, 58, of Monrovia, and former wife, Stacey, came two sons, one of whom, Brandon, 20, of Huntington Beach, is now in his second year of -- you guessed it -- being a jockey agent. The other son, Kyle, 18, appears to have no interest in horse racing and is probably not in the will.

Oh yes, Craig met Stacey at the racetrack, where she and her sister, Jessica, still run the family on-track ambulance business at the local tracks.

Jockey agents fall into that category of the great unknowns who make racing go. They get up early in the morning, hang around the track and the barns, and carry with them schedules of upcoming races called condition books that tell them which horses are running where and when and who might need a jockey.

They chat and schmooze and network and hope to get the jockey they represent on the best horse they can find. For that, they get 20% to 25% of the jockey's winnings, which is usually 10% of the owner's purse. And in this way, they pay the bills, feed their families and become an integral part of the racing product.

Some feed their families quite well, although the norm is a decent living and more Chevys than Cadillacs. Not that the right jockey can't afford a Porsche or two.

For example, Garrett Gomez led the country with about $23 million in winnings last year. His 10% would have brought him $2.3 million, and his agent's 25% would have brought him $575,000.

For Gomez's agent, and several others, that makes those barns gold mines.

It is a world of Damon Runyon characters, a business that operates without contracts and changes partners more often than Zsa Zsa Gabor. A handshake agreement works until it doesn't.

Craig lost Corey Nakatani last week and picked up Aaron Gryder a couple of days later.

"Corey and I had lunch," Craig said. "He said he decided to go in a different direction."

One of Brandon's first clients was a jockey named Billy Anton Georgi, who once had his foot slip out of the stirrup and, unlike a veteran rider who would have got it back in, finished the race that way, winning it.