Apprentice Clawson Rides First Winner at CD

Apprentice jockey Katie Clawson guided Street Thunder, owned by Tom Grether Farms and trained by Kellyn Gorder, to a victory in the fifth race at Churchill Downs June 17 for the first victory of her career.

Clawson, a 10-pound apprentice from Brazil, Ind., has kicked off her riding career on a good note having finished second with her first two mounts as a jockey before her victory Friday afternoon. All three of her mounts have been aboard horses trained by Gorder, whom she began working for as an exercise rider last November.

"It has been pretty amazing," Clawson said. "The boss, Kellyn (Gorder), has put me on horses that have put me in a good spot and the ones that know where they need to be, and it has made me look pretty good. Each race has been just great. All the fillies have run for me and the horses have just been fantastic for me. They're the ones doing most of the work. Everything has really set up the right way."

Clawson has been around horses from the outset riding hunter-jumpers and being active in 4-H, but it wasn't until 2010 Horse of the Year and future Hall of Fame inductee Zenyatta began to make noise in the racing world when her focus shifted toward Thoroughbreds.

"I've always been a horse freak," Clawson said. "Racehorses haven't been in my life for as long. Before Thoroughbreds it has been English, 4-H, hunter-jumpers, and other regular horse people things and then Zenyatta came along. That has been kind of a newer thing since she came around and she really just kind of did it for me.

"She was that thing that just made me want to do it and kind of enchanted me a little bit. Barbaro and Smarty Jones   were the first two that got me interested in it a little bit, and I watched a lot of horseracing movies and stuff like that, but I really only had the basic general knowledge to begin with."

While her career is just beginning, Clawson is aiming high for the future. One major goal of hers would be to win an Eclipse Award for outstanding apprentice. In the meantime however, she plans only riding for Gorder.

"I'm probably going to just stick with Kellyn for a little while," Clawson said. "I'll just ride for him here and there and just get myself in a better spot of the year. I'd like to shoot for an Eclipse Award so I don't want to start the bug until the right time of the year. If I go out on my own in November that would be good; I'll be rolling by the time (2017) starts. If I want to do it, I want to do it the right way."