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Do Jockeys Matter?

One Universal truth in horse racing is that people who do not have any interest in actually handicapping tend to give undue importance to jockeys. I’m not talking about the guy at the track who is torn between two equally talented 7 furlong horses and then decides to go with the one ridden by Bejarano. I’m talking about people who pick thoroughly outclassed horses simply because said horse is ridden by the meet leading rider. This person fails to understand that jockeys will never be as important as horses and trainers, but how important jockeys are is a completely valid question. So, how important are jockeys?

One of the most famous jockey changes of all time was Secretariat being ridden by Eddie Maple instead of Ron Turcotte. Turcotte was serving a suspension so Maple stepped in to ride. Turcotte and Secretariat got along great and obviously had plenty of success. Maple’s riding style didn’t suit Secretariat as much, but Secretariat still managed to win the race with Eddie in the irons.

Of course, there have been jockey changes which have made all the difference in the world. When Shane Sellers rode Skip Away to several second place results, Sonny Hine decided to cut him loose in favor of the greatest jockey of the last 50 years; Jerry Bailey. This resulted in several wins for Skip Away and all of these wins can be attributed to Bailey since the only part of the puzzle that changed was Bailey replacing Sellers. The problem with this is how much of an anomaly this particular situation was.

With all due respect to Shane Sellers, he wasn’t a world-class jockey. He was similar to Dean Butler, but unlike Dean he got the chance to ride for top trainers. Jerry Bailey has the type of skill we may never see again. He was miles ahead intellectually and held his own athletically. In short, he was a student of the sport. Most jockey changes will never be of the magnitude of Sellers to Bailey. This jockey change is the gridiron equivalent of going from a local high-school quarterback to Aaron Rodgers.

So while jockeys do matter, their importance is pretty situational. Bejarano is better at sprints, Gomez was great at routes. This is how you should think about jockeys when handicapping. Always segment jockeys by running style, distance and surface. Only pay attention to jockey changes when they are on a level of a Sellers being upgraded to a Jerry Bailey.

In part two of this series we’ll talk about who the best jockeys actually are using some statistical analysis.

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