What is your biggest jockey pet peeve?

[Neumeier]

I cannot stand when the jockey of a horse I bet on decides to ride In Between horses. I know it can't be helped sometimes, but I see a lot of the time they'll settle in between and by the stretch the horse fades 99 out of 100 times. I don't understand why I see it happen so often. I'd rather be in last with a chance to close rather to be dueling in between 2 horses. It never works.

[Augenj]

Originally Posted by Neumeier

I cannot stand when the jockey of a horse I bet on decides to ride In Between horses. I know it can't be helped sometimes, but I see a lot of the time they'll settle in between and by the stretch the horse fades 99 out of 100 times. I don't understand why I see it happen so often. I'd rather be in last with a chance to close rather to be dueling in between 2 horses. It never works.

It seems that way to me too. However, many times it can't be avoided. My peeves are -

* Top of stretch, jockey on inside allows jockey on outside to roll past him before he sets his horse down for the stretch. Momentum always wins.

* Jockeys who are never in a position to pass on the outside and get boxed in behind a wall of horses. Leparoux?

* Jockeys who don't recognize a slow pace and get beat by a gate to wire horse running slow fractions. This seems to be an affliction of most jockeys, however.

* Jockeys who heavily rate (throttle) a front running, free running type horse with the usual fading at the end of the race.

* Jockeys who go along for the ride the entire race, never urging their mounts to run. You can see the horse's ears pricked, waiting for the word.

[pandy]

Strangling a speed horse trying to rate it, never works. Classic example was the ride on Hard Spun in the Belmont Stakes, although to his credit, Garrett Gomez admitted that it was a bad ride after the race, and was probably instructed to try to rate the horse.

[joeslovo]

Agree with Augenj.
I would only add the one where a jockey does not realize the dead part of a racetrack.
The inside can be a quicksand all day;it's the last race of the day;the getout race;he/she is on the best horse by far but decides to make his move on the inside and bogs down to a stop

[magwell]

Pulling a horse up to quick after the race , instead of letting them gallop out on their own, (unless they are lame of course).........

[banacek]

Jockeys in sprints who get clear leads and refuse to go to the rail. Then some horse comes inside them, they battle through the turn..horse loses ground... and ends up losing by a head.

[cutchemist42]

I think more times than not that heavy rating of a speed horse is just using up the horse. Sometimes it takes up more energy intentionally trying to slow down.

[TucsonGreyhound]

Jocks who start twirling the stick and end up 4th.

Jocks on a 20/1 shot staying 4-wide the entire race.

[thaskalos]

Jockeys who decide to sneak a peek back at the field...just as they are about to be overtaken for the lead from the outside.

[banacek]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

Jockeys who decide to sneak a peek back at the field...just as they are about to be overtaken for the lead from the outside.

Agreed...every time I see that happen I think of Roger Bannister.

[Stillriledup]

I would say my 1,864 biggest peeves are:

1) When jocks look aesthetically unpleasing on a horse even though they know that the elite jocks in America all look "good" on a horse for lack of a better word. Its like they think their "style" of looking like a 150LB exercise rider is somehow better than looking like Joel Rosario or JJ Castellano. My advice to them would be to watch tape and try and correct the way you sit on a horse.

2) When specific horses need to be ridden a specific way and jocks don't really know their horse. For example, lets say a horse is a lone speed but isn't the "quickest" horse when accelerating, the jock will "overrate" that horse and grab into him trying to go as slow as possible, but in reality, that horse needs to roll into the far turn and open up. So, i would say in general, specific little nuances with certain horses in certain situations and the jock just rides the horse like he or she would ride any horse and doesn't tailor their ride to that specific horse in that specific situation.

3) Jocks who ride longshots like they don't know they are a longshot. This REALLY irks me. If i structure a superfecta or trifecta with this particular longshot to finish 3rd or 4th (because even with a perfect ride, that's the best i feel the horse could do) i don't want that jock battling 3 wide early in the race with the favorite....what ends up happening is that the longshot gets burned out and doesn't hang on for 3rd or 4th.

Now, a caveat is that if this is a speed horse, i know going in that the horse will be out there pushing the pace, what makes me mad is what the jock has a tractable horse who might be a stalker or closer and they're "rushing" the horse wide or up too close. Just being overly aggressive on a horse who can't win and costing themselves minor board spots in the process.

4) i would say that not riding out all the way for board spots is a peeve of mine, but certain jocks this is expected behavior and its an epidemic and happens so often that i think its just par for the course that jocks will try all out when they feel like it, so we should be thankful if we get a hard ride all the way to the end.

5) Manipulating running styles, if you have a speed horse, go, don't get cute and "Rate" and if you have a deep closer, ride that horse according to style, don't be shoving on that horse to stay close, quite often a deep one move closer will only be closing because he's way back but the jock and trainer hatch this brilliant scheme to "not be so far back" and guess what, it doesn't work, certain horses need to be ridden a certain way.

6) When jocks "suggest" Blinker changes to trainers on horses who don't need them. Jock always has the "he needs a blinker change" in his back pocket in case the horse just doesn't respond to his hands but what inevitably happens is that the horse didn't really need blinkers in the first place and it just needed a pinhead....er, jockey change.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by pandy

Strangling a speed horse trying to rate it, never works. Classic example was the ride on Hard Spun in the Belmont Stakes, although to his credit, Garrett Gomez admitted that it was a bad ride after the race, and was probably instructed to try to rate the horse.

This appears to be the theme of all riders nowadays.

Nobody uses early speed anymore. I saw a couple of replays last weekend where a few nice priced horses won stakes races on the lead. The same jock was on both.

[Robert Fischer]

Jocks that don't know their horse's idiosyncrasies.
(The horse shies from the whip every race, yet he whips him into submission... The horse needs to be 'wrangled' at the top of the stretch to change leads, yet he doesn't.... The horse that needs to be urged from the gate or kept busy nearing the turn etc...)

Jocks that don't know who the favorite is and what if any strategy applies.
(They let the favorite control key points in the race that could have been prevented, and that could have narrowed the competitive gap)

Jocks that don't know how good their horse is.
(Stay out of trouble and dominate with a much the best horse, and do the 'great rides' with the contenders and long shots).


Really, if a jock does all these things right, he's an exceptional jockey.

[Ruffian1]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

Jocks that don't know their horse's idiosyncrasies.
(The horse shies from the whip every race, yet he whips him into submission... The horse needs to be 'wrangled' at the top of the stretch to change leads, yet he doesn't.... The horse that needs to be urged from the gate or kept busy nearing the turn etc...)

Jocks that don't know who the favorite is and what if any strategy applies.
(They let the favorite control key points in the race that could have been prevented, and that could have narrowed the competitive gap)

Jocks that don't know how good their horse is.
(Stay out of trouble and dominate with a much the best horse, and do the 'great rides' with the contenders and long shots).



Really, if a jock does all these things right, he's an exceptional jockey.

I would blame several of those on the trainer not talking to the rider about it before hand. Even if they rode the horse before, I would never hope they might remember tendencies until they had rode the horse 4-5 times. I drove them nuts repeating myself over and over about those key things. But.. they rarely forgot in that 10 minutes between paddock and gate.

My pet peeve is that unless I told the jock to do it, I almost never saw it done. That is, riding a horse left handed. By that I mean going left hand 1st, then right handed, then back to left. Because the stick is best when it is the element of surprise, that worked well quite often. Many think it's the "pain"of the whip, but trust me, it is not. One surprise pop beats whipping them 20 times. It might not look like it, but it absolutely does.
Only time it would not apply was if there was no room to do it because you were busy pinning a rider down inside.

[letswastemoney]

Originally Posted by pandy

Strangling a speed horse trying to rate it, never works. Classic example was the ride on Hard Spun in the Belmont Stakes, although to his credit, Garrett Gomez admitted that it was a bad ride after the race, and was probably instructed to try to rate the horse.

This one.

If I handicapped the race and picked a horse assuming that horse likes racing on the lead, I want to see that horse go to the lead even if challenged. Win or lose.