Cauthen: A Born Winner

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Cauthen must get his mount to the starting gate loosened up and ready to run without wasting the animal's energy. Once in the gate, he must hold his horse square and up on his toes, hoping to have him perfectly balanced for the sudden clang of the bell and the frantic first steps. The horse explodes from the gate, his hindquarters coiling to unleash his stride. These are the most dangerous moments as, tightly bunched and digging for a purchase on the track, the field sweeps away, each little man controlling 1,000 lbs. of animal rushing at nearly 40 m.p.h.

The problems now come by milliseconds. Gather the horse in and rate him, or take the lead? Who is inside, outside, and where to position? Where is a hole going to open or a gap going to close? The variations are infinite. Finally, the move through the stretch, whipping when needed, but always, always moving as one with the horse. Feet, legs, body, shoulders and arms surging with the animal, the hands speaking to the horse—run, run your heart out, run.

Steve Cauthen repeats these remarkable minutes as often as eight or nine times a day, perhaps 2,000 times a year. It is a grueling day. Jockeys heatedly insist that they are fine athletes, not passengers going along for the ride. The physical strain is enormous. Says Cauthen: "The first race you ever ride, it's unbelievable. If you're ever going to quit, that's the time. You can be the fittest person around, but not fit enough to be a jockey. Until you actually ride a race, you can't tell how hard it is, how exhausted you get. You feel like you're going to have a heart attack. After you ride 1,000 horses a year, you get fit."

The day is also dangerous. A jockey was killed and two others injured at Pimlico two weeks before the Preakness. Huge horses running at high speed cannot be kept on their feet if a bone gives way or a mount falls in front. Says Jockey Jacinto Vasquez: "We're in the kind of sport where you have to be scared. Jockeys always have one foot in the hospital and one in the cemetery. But we can't think about what will happen if a horse stumbles. If an athlete has fear, he can't work."

Throughout Cauthen's apprenticeship, the prospect of a fall —and the recovery of his psyche from it—was the single reservation that racing people had about his future. Hot bugboys (though never as hot as Cauthen) had come along before, only to turn all too cold when a spill thudded home the risks of the trade. Fear is part of racing. So is courage.