Jockeys

Thirty-five years ago, Chris McCarron arrived on the horse racing scene like one of those stealth bombers flying over the Rose Parade. Suddenly, he was just there. He was immediately competitive, an instant winner. Horse players quickly learned to look for him at the head of the pack. Other jockeys needed time to blossom. McCarron showed up in full bloom. On Feb. 9, 1974, the 5-foot-2, 109-pound McCarron climbed aboard a 5-year-old gelding named Erezev for a race at Bowie in Maryland.

One of only two jockeys in the world with more than 10,000 victories is coming to town hoping to produce some sweet music aboard Monterey Jazz in Saturday's 71st Santa Anita Handicap. But no one is striking up the band. No festival is planned. It's not as if it's David Beckham. Russell Baze will fly down from the Bay Area tonight, try to guide the 5-1 shot to victory in the $1-million race the next day, and then quietly return home.

It was a frightening sight. A horse that moments earlier was leading a race lay dead on the track, the victim of a heart attack, and his jockey, 25-year-old Rafael Bejarano, was crumpled in a heap next to the rail as medical personnel rushed to the scene. "The first thing you worry about is the health of the jockey," Kathy Walsh said Friday. "There's always another race."

One can carry family togetherness to extremes, which is what George O'Bryan has done. 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.

There's no denying the dedication of Joseph Talamo III, who as a child got up at 3:30 a.m. to clean stalls and walk horses. Then he sat in front of a television at home, watching races, holding a whip and lashing furniture as if he were in a stretch drive. "Ever since I was 7 or 8, all I put my mind to was being a jockey," he said. On Easter Sunday, while classmates at Archbishop Shaw High in Marrero, La.

Former jockey Laffit Pincay was awarded a judgment of $2.7 million by a jury in Pasadena on Monday, the culmination of a lawsuit against Huntington Ambulance regarding the spill that ended his career more than four years ago. Pincay, 60, had reached an out-of-court settlement early last year with Santa Anita and the physician's assistant who treated him immediately after the accident on March 1, 2003, during a race on the hillside turf course at the Arcadia track.

Jockeys Alex Bisono, Martin Garcia and Martin Pedroza escaped serious injury after being involved in a spill in the fourth race Thursday at Hollywood Park. The chain-reaction accident began when Royal Change, ridden by Bisono, broke a leg while leading the $40,000 maiden claiming race. Bisono went down, as did Garcia and Pedroza. Bisono was diagnosed with a sprained right ankle and Garcia with a sprained left wrist.

Two weeks ago, we didn't know Calvin Borel from Calvin Klein. Today, he will be the straw that stirs all those Black-Eyed Susans served here at the Preakness. Borel is a 111-pound jockey who has become the 800-pound gorilla this Triple Crown horse racing season. The horses are supposed to be the stars, and Preakness favorite Street Sense is certainly that. But the guy driving the bus warrants curtain calls too. In the Kentucky Derby, a mile-and-a-quarter ride that took 2 minutes 2.

The 4-foot-10 woman with the squeaky voice and the striking blue eyes will be spending a couple of hours at the Windrose Farm in nearby Encinitas today. "I go just about every day, except maybe Sundays," says Julie Krone, the most successful female jockey in the history of thoroughbred horse racing. At Windrose, she will see friends and familiar faces. She will putter around, chat with other horse owners and equestrian instructors, and work with the horses she owns, Miss Piggy and Peter Rabbit.