Month: December 2019

Excerpt from my book, Racing With My Shadow

My relationship with the jockeys was growing as well. The New York riders were accepting me as one of them. One day Angel Cordero and I were getting on the scale before a race.

He looked at me with concern. “It’s not fair that you have to spend the day all alone in that room (the girl jocks’ room). You should be able to come in our rec room where we play ping pong, cards, and pool.”

“I don’t mind, Angel. Really. I like it back there. I like being alone.” I got on the scale and the valet handed me my saddle. After the clerk of scales nodded, I handed the saddle back and stepped off the scale. “Really, Angel. All I care about it getting to ride. I’m fine.”

But he insisted. “Listen, baby, why can’t you come in with us? Eat at the counter and play ping pong.”

“That’s okay, Angel. I don’t want to put anyone out. I’m fine, really.”

“I’m going to talk to the guys. We’ll have a vote. I’m sure it will be fine with them.” Angel winked as he took his whip from the valet and we headed out to ride the next race.

There was no stopping Angel when he set his mind to doing something. He was very much a leader with the other jockeys.

The next day he approached me. “Karoleena, I have some good news. We took a vote and the majority voted you can come in the rec room. Isn’t that good?” he smiled.

I wasn’t sure. “Thanks, Angel.”

Even though I had permission to join the other jockeys, I was reluctant to invade their space.

Angel approached me a few days later. “Karoleena, why aren’t you coming in with us between races? You’re allowed in.” He looked concerned.

“I don’t want the other riders mad at me.”

Angel laughed. “Come on, baby. Nobody would be mad at you. We voted, remember?”

With encouragement from Angel, I started spending time between races in the jocks’ room. My afternoons were really fun. They were the best times I ever had.

Angel Cordero, Jr, me, and Jerry Bailey in the Jocks’ Room

I played backgammon with Jacinto Vasquez, bumper pool with Angel, and ping pong with Jerry Bailey. I belonged. I wasn’t alone anymore.

I looked forward to my afternoons, as much now for the company as for riding races. Some days I rode seven or eight races, but I preferred to ride less and spend more time in the jocks’ room!

Initiating apprentice jockey John Santagata

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Excerpt from my book, Racing With My Shadow

Winning my last race: Northern Snipe and me, reunited

I’ve been putting off the inevitable. Every day I say I’m going to quit riding. Every day. I have been dating Pablo for seven months, and I guess it’s time to put riding behind me. God, if this is what You want me to do, then let me just do it today.

I was highly emotional. This was it. I would do it.

Maybe this was what God wanted for me. I didn’t seem to know anything anymore. Adept had won. My business was slow. I was fired from Dubai. Well, this is it, boys. My last race. My God, it’s Northern Snipe!

Here I was, reunited with Northern Snipe, the horse I had ridden in my very first race for Vince in April of 1979. Now, in 1984, I was back on him again.

He had changed hands many times, and was now trained by Debbie Casson. Things had come full circle. My first career mount, and now my last.

Our first race together, me and Northern Snipe

I thought back to those times at Hialeah when I lived in fear of Mom finding out about the secret. A lot had happened since then. I had been through the extremes of a jockey’s career: the good year as an apprentice and the difficult transition to journeyman.

I had been through, literally, all the ups and downs that came with it: spills and injuries, comebacks, struggling for mounts, and being a leading rider.

I had lived through the most difficult time of all, when Mom found out about Vince from the letter. And then I had met Pablo. Yes, it had been a long road.

Through it all things had changed, yet they remained the same. The long and winding road had led me right back to the same place I had started—riding Northern Snipe.

I wondered where the road had taken him before it brought him back to be reunited with me. He, too, had changed, yet remained the same. Now he was a snowy white instead of an iron gray—but he still liked to run on the outside.

I whispered to Northern Snipe, “Let’s win this one, boy, for old times’ sake.”

Northern Snipe made his typical big run, barreling down the homestretch. Come on, boy, COME ON! We got up to win by a head.

Pulling him up, I felt the tears flood my eyes. This was it. This was really it. I patted Northern Snipe and turned him around to gallop back to the winner’s circle.

Feel him gallop beneath you. Feel it for the last time. Farewell, sweet career! It’s been nice.

In the winner’s circle on Northern Snipe — my last race

My face was wet from the tears as I pulled my saddle off for the last time. I was resigned to it now. Nobody but God knew that I was ending my career. Not my agent, not the trainer, not anybody.

Debbie Casson, the trainer of Northern Snipe, looked at me as we walked back to the jocks’ room for the last time.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. She didn’t understand. How could she? She didn’t know I was quitting. I shook my head without explanation and hurried back to the girl jocks’ room.

I had not cried since riding Northern Snipe in my very first race in New York, when trainer Allen Jerkens had yelled at me, and this strange sense of history repeating itself seemed somehow worthy of noting. The horse, the tears, the first, the last….

How could I have known that this was just the beginning of things going full circle?

It was the beginning, though, the start of strange twists of fate weaving through my life like a theme, weaving a web which would eventually entangle me and take me back to my ultimate destiny… my past.

I wasn’t free. My riding had been a painted picture of freedom. Painted pictures on prison walls. This prison cell with no way out, would eventually reveal itself for what it was. Until that time, though, I would race ahead. Race into what I believed was a way out.

Painted pictures, prison walls, tangled web. But the web was not yet complete. I was the prisoner…yes, and me the jockey, too. Held captive. Yet, I was unaware of this. I was too busy racing full speed ahead.

Racing with my shadow.

For the shadow of my past had never left me. It had kept pace throughout, as shadows do. I hadn’t left it behind, like I had figured. It was still right there where it had been all along. It lingered, moving ahead when I did, slowing when I slowed.

My life had yet to go full circle. My past would track me down. There was no escaping. There was no way out.

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