Inside the Jockeys’ Room with Gary Stevens
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Gary Stevens wins the 2013 Breeders' Cup Distaff aboard Beholder at Santa Anita Park. (Photo by Eclipse Sportswire)
Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens and Chantal Sutherland-Kruse, a two-time Sovereign Award winner in her native Canada, take America's Best Racing's readers inside the jockeys' room in 2014. Stevens and Sutherland-Kruse will provide answers to all sorts of questions such as how jockeys get paid, what goes on between races, whom they admire and what type of music and fashion style they favor.
In this edition of Inside the Jockeys' Room we learn a little more about Stevens, whose comeback in 2013 was arguably the biggest story in horse racing and featured wins in the Preakness Stakes with Oxbow and Breeders' Cup Classic with Mucho Macho Man. This Saturday Stevens will ride champion Beholder in the Ogden Phipps Stakes, Bayern in the Woody Stephens Stakes, Fashion Plate in the Acorn Stakes and Grandeur in the Manhattan Stakes on the Belmont Stakes undercard.
What do you do with your time in between races?
STEVENS: I watch films of races to help me figure out my strategy for my races. We talk with each other in the [jockeys’] room, watch the races of the day and see how the other guys are doing.
Who are your heroes in real life?
STEVENS: George Patton, Bill Shoemaker, Scott Stevens
What was the best jockeys’ room prank you can remember?
STEVENS: Shoemaker use to do pranks on a daily basis. You would put your boots on and they would be glued to the floor or be filled with shaving cream. It was constant.
Weirdest question a fan has ever asked you?
STEVENS: ‘Did you try to win that race?’ It still shocks me when people ask that or that they even think that.
What is your favorite app?
STEVENS: Horse Races Now
The country would be better off if … ?
STEVENS: People did their homework before they voted for anything/any office.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
STEVENS: Loyalty
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
STEVENS: Sensibility
What is your greatest regret?
STEVENS: I have no regrets.
Last thing you do before you turn off the lights at night?
STEVENS: Pray to God.