8/7/06

FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATE
CONTACT: TAMARA CRONIN
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
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CHESTER, WV — HALL OF FAMER SMITH RIDES IN WEST VIRGINIA DERBY by Bill Mooney

If you look at the career resume of Mike Smith, you'll see that he has won 4,560 races, of which 337 have been graded stakes. Those are exceptional numbers for a jockey, and, indeed, there is a plaque bearing Smith's name and likeness in the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Sunday, though, the 40-year-old Smith will be doing something he has never done before - ride in the Grade 3, $750,000 West Virginia Derby at The Mountaineer Casino Racetrack and Resort. When the race goes off at 5:27 p.m. EDT, he'll be aboard the 3-1 morning line favorite, Wanna Runner.

This will be the first time Smith has ridden Wanna Runner, who is the only horse to have previously won a graded stakes in this year's West Virginia Derby field. Wanna Runner will break from the number seven post position, right in the middle of the pack. It's a perfect spot to start from in a 1 1/8-mile race, and if Wanna Runner is at the top of his game, he's going to be very tough to beat.

Smith is a champ in every sense of the word. He won the Eclipse Award as North America's outstanding jockey in both 1993 and 1994. His Hall of Fame induction occurred in 2003. In '93, he booted Prairie Bayou to victory in the Preakness Stakes, and in 2005 Smith guided the 50-1 longshot, Giacomo, to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

He also has registered ten victories in Breeders' Cup races, which puts him in third position behind only Jerry Bailey and Pat Day in that category. Bailey has 15 career Breeders' Cup victories and Day has 12, but both of these riders are now retired. It's well within possibility that within a few years, Smith will be the all-time Breeders' Cup leader.

Eight years ago, many racing people believed that Smith's career as a jockey was over. On August 31, 1998, he took a terrible spill on the turf at Saratoga and broke two vertebrae in his back. The accident occurred only two days after Smith had guided Coronado's Quest to a photo-finish triumph in Saratoga's premier event, the Grade 1 Travers Stakes.

In February of the following year, Smith returned to race riding, but for a while he seemed unsure aboard his mounts, reluctant to go through openings on the rail and unwilling to thread his way between horses during stretch runs. Severe injuries often leave wounds that are more long-lasting emotionally than they are physically. It's something athletes must overcome, if they wish to continue to compete at the top levels.

And if a journeyman jockey, especially, develops a reputation among owners and trainers that his nerve has diminished, it is a very difficult tag to overcome. Slowly, over a four-year period, Smith was able to do that. His big breakthrough came on Breeders' Cup Day in 2002 at Arlington Park, when Smith won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile aboard Vindication and the Breeders' Cup Distaff with Azeri.

Smith was born in Roswell, New Mexico. His father, George, had a brief career as a jockey in Arizona. Smith, himself, began riding races at the bush tracks in his home state when he was 11. And, in 1982 at the age of 16, he won his first pari-mutuel race at the track in Santa Fe.

For most of the decade of the 1980's, Smith moved around with frequency, riding at tracks in Arkansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Kentucky and Minnesota. In 1986, he reached the 200-win plateau for the first time, registering a total of 221 wins for the season.

In 1989, Smith took his tack to the New York Racing Association circuit - Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga - and from that juncture his star quickly ascended. In 1990, he registered his first Grade 1 victory, aboard Thirty Six Red in Aqueduct's Wood Memorial.

During the first of his Eclipse years, in '93, Smith won 342 races. Among them were 38 graded stakes, of which nine were Grade 1 events - including the Preakness with Prairie Bayou, and the Breeders' Cup Mile at Santa Anita with Lure.

The following year, Smith won 316 races. Fifty-three were graded events. Twenty bore Grade 1 status - among them were the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont, the Haskell Invitational Handicap at Monmouth Park, the Travers Stakes and Belmont's Woodward Stakes, all of which were achieved with Holy Bull, who was crowned North America's Horse of the Year.

Over the years, Smith's mounts have earned purse monies totaling $177.7 million. His career win ratio is 16.4%. The victory he's most noted for, of course, was with Giacomo in the '05 Kentucky Derby.

Giacomo was 18th in the 20-horse field through the opening three-quarters of a mile in the race. That's not exactly an advantageous position with a half-mile to go. But Smith guided Giacomo between horses on the far turn, angled him to the outside approaching the stretch, worked his way through another group of horses inside the eighth-pole, took the lead 70 yards from the wire and then held on to prevail by a half-length.

It was a masterful riding performance, one that forever secured Smith's niche as one of the great jockeys in the history of the sport. Giacomo returned $102.60, $45.80 and $19.80 across the board. In the 132-year history of the Kentucky Derby, Giacomo remains the third longest shot ever to win.

On July 22 of this year, Giacomo registered his first win since the Kentucky Derby, in the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar in Southern California. Smith was aboard him. Giacomo is being pointed towards the Breeders' Cup Classic, which will be run this year on November 4 at Churchill Downs. If he's fully ready, he could provide Smith with his 11th victory in Breeders' Cup competition.

But, Sunday, Smith's focus will be on winning the West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer. Over the years, ten Hall of Fame jockeys have ridden in the race. But Pat Day, with Beau Sham in 1978, is the only one to have won it.

Smith will attempt to become the second. And he'll have the pre-race favorite, Wanna Runner, as his means to do it.