Monday, Jan. 5, 2004 | 10:03 a.m.
Ralph Siraco's horse racing column appears Monday and his Southern California selections run Tuesday-Sunday.
It was a year in which the human athletes were as prominent as their equine partners, but 2003 was also a year in which the sport lost some of its truly precious human treasures.
Jockey Jerry Bailey and trainer Bobby Frankel each set records; jockeys Pat Valenzuela and Julie Krone made individual comebacks from different paths that brought both back to prominence, and trainer Richard Mandella had a career day on the sport's championship day.
Bailey won a record 70 stakes races in 2003 while breaking his own single-season earnings record amassing more than $23.3 million. There were 26 Grade I wins among the 70 stakes, of which 14 were in service to Frankel-trained runners. Bailey was so far ahead of runner-up Edgar Prado, that even if you took away the Frankel-trained wins, he still would have edged out Prado, who had 10 Grade I triumphs.
Frankel won a record 25 Grade I races and almost reached the $20 million mark in earnings for 2003 while still setting the single-season earnings record exceeding $19.1 million. Frankel accomplished the feat with no Breeders' Cup winners and only Empire Maker's Belmont Stakes victory in Triple Crown events.
Mandella had what could be considered a career day on Breeders' Cup day 2003. He captured four Breeders' Cup races on the eight-race championship program, winning both juvenile events with Halfbridled for the fillies and Action This Day for the colts and geldings. He won the Turf when his Johar finished on even terms with High Chaparral and took the centerpiece Classic with Pleasantly Perfect.
Krone came out of a retirement and quickly became the most popular jockey on the Southern California racing circuit. She won the three biggest races at Del Mar -- the Futurity with Siphonizer, the Debutante on Halfbridled (with which she would later become the first female rider to win a Breeders' Cup race) and the Pacific Classic aboard Candy Ride. She also had two spills that resulted in injuries, the most recent of which still has her out of action.
Valenzuela, a talented rider who has had his career interrupted several times because of substance-abuse suspensions, completed the most successful year of his rocky racing career in 2003. He swept all five major Southern California riding titles. Only Chris McCarron in 1983 took the Santa Anita, Hollywood Park spring-summer, Del Mar, Oak Tree and Hollywood Park fall riding titles. Although P. Val ran the table of race meets last year, like Krone, he is sidelined at the current Santa Anita meeting. His bench time, however, is serving delayed suspension days for riding infractions during his record run last year.
Russell Baze did it again. For the 11th time in the past 12 years, Baze won more than 400 races in a year. Riding on the Northern California circuit, Baze won 410 races during 2003, hitting that mark before breaking a collarbone in a spill at Bay Meadows late in the year. Baze is still sidelined with that injury.
Two Hall of Fame riders hung up the tack in 2003.
Jockey Eddie Delahoussaye, 51, called it a career on Jan. 13 after nearly 35 years in the saddle. He never fully recovered from a spill at Del Mar in 2002 that left him with head and neck injuries. Among his 6,384 career winners were back-to-back Kentucky Derby victories by Gato Del Sol in 1982 and Sonny's Halo in 1983.
Laffit Pincay Jr., 56, officially retired from riding on April 29 after conferring with his doctors. The world's winningest rider, Pincay had serious back and neck injuries from a March 1 spill at Santa Anita. Hhe amassed 9,530 lifetime victories over five decades in the saddle spanning 40 years.
Two others passed away.
Legendary jockey Johnny Longden died Feb. 14 on his 96th birthday. Longden was the only person to ever ride and train a Kentucky Derby winner. He rode Count Fleet to victory in the 1943 Derby on the way to the Triple Crown and trained 1969 Derby winner Majestic Prince before also winning the Preakness Stakes that year. As a child, Longden and his mother missed their booked passage to America on the Titanic.
And, possibly the biggest story of 2003 was the passing of racing icon Bill Shoemaker. The winner of 8,833 career races -- that included four Kentucky Derbies -- Shoemaker's name was the most synonymous with the sport of kings than any other. A true ambassador of racing, Shoemaker transcended the sport that made him so famous.
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