8/5/06

FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATE
CONTACT: TAMARA CRONIN
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
304-387-8335 (OFFICE) 304-479-8097 (CELL)

CHESTER, WV — A FORMER JOCKEY AND HIS LONGSHOT WIN by Bill Mooney

A quarter-century's elapsed since Jeff Lloyd booted the 27-1 longshot, Park's Policy, to victory in the West Virginia Derby. Nonetheless, Lloyd still maintains the distinction of having ridden the highest-priced horse ever to win The Mountaineer Casino Racetrack and Resort's premier event.

Park's Policy returned $57.60, $15.60 and $5.00 across the board. Mountaineer was then known as Waterford Park. The West Virginia Derby was broken into two divisions that year, each bearing a $35,000 purse. Ronald Reagan was only in his seventh month as president. Yes, 1981 seems long ago.

These days, Lloyd - Jeffrey Scott Lloyd is his full name - is a placing judge at Mountaineer. "The people who I work with in the racing office know I won the West Virginia Derby," Lloyd said. "But I don't think most of the other Mountaineer employees know."

After taking the lead out of the starting gate, Park's Policy surrendered it briefly to a horse named Quick Rotation, then again moved to the fore. His margin at the wire was a widening 1 ½ lengths. Less than three-quarters of a length separated the next six horses. All were in aggressive pursuit of Park's Policy, but couldn't catch him.

"I don't remember much about that race," said Lloyd. "Waterford had pea gravel on its surface then, and it was like getting pelted with 'bb's' if you were behind. Clyde Rice trained Park's Policy, and we shipped in from Penn National Race Course, where I was riding regularly."

In his previous start, eight days prior to the West Virginia Derby, Park's Policy had dead-heated for second in a 1 1/16-mile turf allowance at Penn National. The West Virginia Derby represented Park Policy's first career stakes try. He never won or placed in a stakes again.

That wasn't the case for Lloyd. His riding career at pari-mutuel thoroughbred tracks spanned 26 years, during which he won 4,274 races. Among them were 60 stakes victories, achieved at 14 different tracks.

A sampling: in '81, Lloyd also won the Preston M. Burch Handicap at Bowie Race Course in Maryland with a horse named Blue Ensign. In 1986, he won the My Dear Stakes at Woodbine in Toronto with Swingin Nickel.

In 1987, Lloyd won the Walter Haight Handicap at Maryland's Laurel Race Course with Entitled To. In 1993, he won Laurel's Ben Franklin Stakes with Country Sky. And in 1999, Lloyd won the Pennsylvania Futurity at Philadelphia Park with Classic Verse.

He further won an additional pair of stakes races at Mountaineer in 1999 - the West Virginia Governor's Handicap, with True Silver, and the West Virginia Senate President's Cup, with Bluemont Affair.

"Donald Saville trained both those horses," Lloyd said. "I had also finished fourth with True Silver (at odds of 44-1) in the 1998 West Virginia Derby. He was tough to ride. You had to work exceptionally hard on him all the way, as if the entire race was a stretch run."

Besides Park's Policy and True Silver, Lloyd had two other West Virginia Derby mounts. He finished fourth with Gantlet Dancer in 1980, and ninth with another Saville trainee, Who Ezza, in '99. "I never rode anything but longshots in that race," he said.

Back in 1982, Lloyd recorded 281 wins, which was the most he ever achieved in a single year. He also exceeded the 200-victory plateau during six other seasons. Such numbers are huge for a jockey, regardless if riding major or minor league circuits. The career earnings of Lloyd's mounts totaled over $34 million.

Although he began his pari-mutuel race riding at Waterford/Mountaineer in August, 1975, Lloyd spent most of career based in Pennsylvania, at either Penn National or 'Philly Park. "But I rode throughout New Jersey, throughout Maryland, at all the New York tracks, and in Ohio, Virginia and at Charles Town," he said. In '83, Lloyd won what was then Charles Town's major race, the Tri-State Futurity, with a horse named Restless John.

Lloyd will turn 50 on August 20 of this year. He's originally from Oxford, Wisconsin, which is 60 miles north of the state capitol of Madison. He comes from a racing family, and at the age of 15 was riding thoroughbreds and quarter horses at the half-mile bush tracks in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

"They staged car races and Demolition Derbies, too," said Lloyd. "In the mornings, we often had to go on the track and removed the car parts that had fallen off the night before. A lot of times the inside rail was a ditch, and the outside rail would be a cornfield. We'd put up a snow fence to make it a little bit safer.

"We'd get five dollars to ride a race, and $15 if we won, and there were a dozen weekends when we'd race," Lloyd said. "The money wasn't much for an adult, but it was okay for a kid."

Injuries, of course, are inevitable components of a jockey's life. "I broke my back twice, cracked a shoulder, broke a shoulder, cracked both legs, broke six ribs, punctured a lung," said Lloyd. "I broke my wrist, but I didn't do that riding, I was moving a refrigerator."

A bad spill riding a maiden starter at Philadelphia Park in August, 2000, ended Lloyd's days as a jockey. "Down we went, and the horse rolled over me," Lloyd said. "I broke some vertebrae, and was in a body cast for seven months." In November of 2001, he started his Mountaineer job.

Lloyd's wife of 28 years, Terri, is originally from Newell, West Virginia, which is where they now live. They have two daughters - Jessica, who recently graduated from Penn State University, and Nicole, who's in college now.

Terri is studying to be a nurse, and Lloyd is certified to be a steward, having completed his training at the University of Louisville. "We'd like to eventually return to Pennsylvania," he said.

"It's amazing, though, what they've done at Mountaineer," said Lloyd. "The West Virginia Derby's a $750,000 race. The purse could soon be up to a million dollars. Whoever thought, 25 years ago, that this could happen? "