Hipodromos y caballos - Racetracks and horses BloodStockReview2013 | Page 46

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I N T E R N AT I O N A L

T

HE headline story in North
America in 2013 did not come
from a horse. Rather, it was the
improbable comeback of Hall of Fame jockey
Gary Stevens after a seven-year retirement
hiatus that commanded the most significant
interest.
You could not make it up. Three-time
Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Stevens was
49 when he looked at himself in the mirror
and decided he did not like what he saw.
Stevens took drastic action and put himself
through a boot camp in Washington State
before his unlikely return to the saddle in
southern California in January.
There were no shortage of sceptics, yet
ten months later he had won a string of
Grade 1 races, among them the Preakness
Stakes on Oxbow and both the Breeders’
Cup Classic and Distaff on Mucho Macho
Man and Beholder. Now 50, he even found
time to drop into Ascot to ride a winner at
the Shergar Cup in August.
The Breeders’ Cup Classic provided a
fitting finale to two spell-binding days at
Santa Anita as a three-horse thriller also
featuring Will Take Charge and Ballydoyle’s
Declaration Of War ended in a highly
emotional fairytale finish as Mucho Macho
Man just held on under Stevens for trainer
Kathy Ritvo, the first woman to train the
winner of the race.
A year ago, Stevens was still w ܚ