Mike Smith Signed BloodHorse Magazine, McKinzie, 2019 Whitney, Justify Jockey

Description: Up for sale is a copy of the August 10, 2019 BloodHorse magazine with Whitney Stakes winner McKinzie on the cover. It has been signed by jockey Mike Smith. I got this signed at Saratoga Race Course. Thanks for looking. McKinzie scores effortless Whitney victory When you have a horse that has finished first or second in all but one of his 12 starts, it might seem a bit churlish to be disappointed at missed opportunities and narrow losses. Still, one might forgive owners Michael Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman for wondering wistfully what might have been with McKinzie. Undefeated in his first three starts, he was on his way to being among the top contenders on the 2018 Kentucky Derby (G1) trail, until injury sidelines him for the entire Triple Crown series. He came back to win the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby (G1), only then to finish 12th in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1). But standing in the winner’s circle at Saratoga Race Course after McKinzie won Saturday’s $980,000 Whitney Stakes (G1), Weitman was happy to live fully in the moment. “(You never like) missing the Kentucky Derby,” he said, “But this makes up for it.” No doubt Team McKinzie wasn’t too broken up about the scratch of Thunder Snow on the morning of the race. Trainer Saeed bin Suroor told the New York Racing Association (NYRA) that the horse had a cough and a slight fever this morning, leading to his withdrawing the richest horse currently racing from the Whitney, stymied once again in his quest to win a race in the United States. McKinzie and jockey Mike Smith broke from post 6, wearing, like the other six horses in the race, pink saddle towels in honor of the late Marylou Whitney, for whom the day was named. Earlier in the afternoon, Governor Andrew Cuomo visited Saratoga Race Course for the first time, presenting a proclamation that today was Marylou Whitney Day in New York State. Breaking sharply and briefly taking the lead, McKinzie settled in second behind the expected pacesetter Preservationist, who’d been obstreperous both in the paddock and on the track. McKinzie tipped off the rail to run outside of Preservationist, then ran four-wide into the stretch, contending with Preservationist, Vino Rossi and a late-charging Yoshida. But it was McKinzie who held on, cruising to a 1 3/4-length victory under a hand ride. Yoshida was second, followed 4 3/4 lengths by Vino Rossi. Preservationist was fourth. Forewarned, Monongahela and Imperative completed the order of finish. Forewarned stumbled on the gallop-out, throwing jockey John Bisono. According to NYRA veterinarian Anthony Verderosa, Forewarned suffered some abrasions but appeared to be fine. Bisono walked off under his own power. Weitman purchased McKinzie at the 2016 Keeneland September yearling sale, paying $170,000 for the bay son of Street Sense. Bred in Kentucky by Summer Wind Farm, McKinzie is out of the Petionville mare Runway Model, herself a multiple Grade 2 winner. With his win in the Whitney, his fourth Grade 1 win, McKinzie has earned $2.2 million. “To me, he’s the best horse in the country,” trainer Bob Baffert said. “He’s getting better and better. When they came to him, I got a little bit nervous; I started thinking maybe he doesn’t want to go that far, but he’s always shown us in his works that he’s got more gears.” “There were some good horses in there so he had to run, but he ran,” Smith said. “That’s the important thing. He had to work at it, but he got away from them and the best part of it was at the end of the race. That gives me confidence going a mile and a quarter down the road.” Baffert got teary-eyed meeting the media after the race, recalling the horse’s namesake. “I was thinking about Brad McKinzie,” he said. “We named this horse at Brad’s funeral.” A long-time friend of Baffert and executive at Los Alamitos Race Course, McKinzie died in 2017. “Big Brad was a one-of-a-kind person, and this horse is a one-of-a-kind horse,” co-owner Pegram said. “When Bobby called me and told me we had a good one, I said, ‘There’s only one name we can give him.’ And you’ve seen him today.” Baffert was also thinking of someone whose absence at Saratoga has been keenly felt. “I’ve never won the Whitney,” he said. “It’s really sad that Marylou’s not here. She’s all that’s missing. I would have really liked that. She was always so nice to us.” For the first time in recent memory, Marylou was not on hand to present the trophy to the winning connections of her family’s race. Instead, it was presented by her widower, John Hendrickson, and relatives of the late Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Marylou’s second husband. The Whitney is a “Win & You’re In” race for the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park on November 2. “Originally, my plan was to run him in the Met Mile (G1) and keep him in California. I said I need to get a sexy win in him and the Whitney – it doesn’t get sexier than that,” Baffert said. “When you win the Whitney, you win for everyone,” said Weitman. “You win for the breeding, you win for the purse, you win at a beautiful place like Saratoga.” Baffert concurred. “Our whole ownership group is here and it’s exciting to come to Saratoga and they all came and enjoyed themselves,” he said. “This is unbelievable. This is real horse racing right here. Until you’ve been here and experienced it, it’s just a beautiful scene and when you see that you know that (horse) racing is still alive and strong.” Michael Earl Smith (born August 10, 1965) is an American jockey who has been one of the leading riders in U.S. Thoroughbred racing since the early 1990s, was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2003 and has won the most Breeders' Cup races of any jockey with 27 victories.[2] Smith is also the third leading jockey of all time in earnings with over $336 million.[3] In 2018, Smith rode Justify to the Triple Crown, becoming the oldest jockey to win the title at age 52. Background Smith was born to George Smith, a one-time jockey, and Vidoll Vallejos in New Mexico; his mother was 19 years old at the time. Smith's parents divorced when he was 8 years old.[4] Smith spent most of his youth on his maternal grandparents' horse farm where he began breaking horses at eight years old. Smith began riding races in his native New Mexico at age 11, and took out a jockey's license at age 16 in 1982.[4] In the ninth grade, Smith dropped out of Dexter High School.[5] Shortly thereafter, accompanied by his paternal grandfather, he began riding a Midwestern circuit which included races at Hawthorne Race Course in Chicago, Ak-Sar-Ben in Omaha and Oaklawn Park Race Track in Hot Springs, Arkansas. On April 17, 1987, Smith married Patrice Lively, daughter of jockey John L. Lively, in Hot Springs. The marriage ended in divorce. Smith served his apprenticeship at Canterbury Downs in Minnesota before moving to New York in 1989. In 2000, he established his home base in Southern California. On January 13, 2019, Mike married Cynthia Naanouh at a private ceremony at St. Rita's Catholic Church in Sierra Madre, California. Career In 1991, Smith became one of the few American jockeys to win a European classic by claiming victory in the Irish 2,000 Guineas aboard Fourstars Allstar (some other American jockeys, notably Steve Cauthen and Cash Asmussen, had won European classics before Smith, but were based in Europe). Also that year he got his big break by becoming the leading jockey in New York for the first of three years from 1991 to 1993, with 330, 297 and 313 wins, respectively. The following year, he rode his first Breeders' Cup winner, Lure, in the Breeders' Cup Mile. The year after that, 1993, Smith truly arrived as a top jockey, setting a North American record for stakes wins in a year with 62. Among his highlights were a win in the Preakness aboard Prairie Bayou- who was later euthanized after breaking down in the Belmont Stakes while being ridden by Smith – and a successful defense of the Breeders' Cup Mile aboard Lure. That year, he won his first Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey, and also won an ESPY Award as top jockey. In 1994, he broke his own record for stakes wins with 68, 20 of them Grade I races. Several of those wins came while riding that year's Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year winner, Holy Bull. He also rode two winners in that year's Breeders' Cup, and again won the Eclipse Award as leading jockey. Smith went on to ride two Breeders' Cup winners in both 1995 and 1997. In 1994, he was voted the Mike Venezia Memorial Award for "extraordinary sportsmanship and citizenship". The dangers of Smith's profession became evident in 1998, when he suffered major injuries in two separate spills. A broken shoulder in March took him out of action for two months. Then, in August, while leading the Saratoga meeting, he broke two vertebrae in his back, requiring him to wear a body cast for several months. He came back six months after the fall. In 2000, he moved his home base from New York to Southern California. That year he won the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award that honors a rider whose career and personal conduct exemplify the very best example of participants in the sport of thoroughbred racing. In 2002, he served as the regular rider for his second Horse of the Year, Azeri. He rode Azeri to a win in the Breeders' Cup Distaff, and also rode Vindication to a win in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile. In 2005, he rode 50–1 longshot Giacomo to victory in the Kentucky Derby. The win, Smith's first in the Derby, was something of a vindication for him. He was aboard Giacomo's sire Holy Bull, the 2–1 favorite in the 1994 Derby, but could finish only 12th after Holy Bull was bumped coming out of the starting gate. In 2008, he added two more Breeders' Cup victories first in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies with Stardom Bound, and with the then 4-year-old Zenyatta in the Ladies' Classic. A year later, Smith returned to the Breeders' Cup with Zenyatta, this time to capture the Breeders' Cup Classic. Smith partnered Zenyatta to 16 straight victories of a 19-for-20 career that saw her become the first horse to win two different Breeders' Cup races, and the richest female racehorse with the earnings of $7,304,580. After capturing the Breeders' Cup Ladies Classic on Royal Delta in 2011, Smith became the all-time leader for most Breeders' Cup wins, with 17. By 2016, his record rose to 25 Breeders' Cup wins. Smith was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2003. Smith is one of the jockeys featured in Animal Planet's 2009 reality documentary, Jockeys. Mike Smith earned the 5,000th victory of his Hall of Fame career when he teamed with 2011 sprint champion Amazombie to capture the $150,000 Potrero Grande Stakes (gr. II) at Santa Anita Park on April 7, 2012. As he became older, Smith chose to ride fewer but more lucrative races, and his success in doing so, particularly his ability to stay calm in the most high-pressure races, earned him the nickname "Big Money Mike".[9] In 2017, Smith became the 14th winner of the Laffit Pincay Jr. Award given by the Hall of Fame jockey it is named for. Recipients are given the award for having served the sport of horse racing "with integrity, extraordinary dedication, determination, and distinction." "When we started this award back in 2004, Mike Smith was absolutely the sort of person we had in mind as one of our winners," Pincay said. "I only got to ride against him briefly out here, but I've followed his career over the years and he's been a model of consistency, class, and pure athletic ability. He's a star in all senses of the word and it is an honor to honor him." In 2018, Smith became the rider of Justify, who, after winning two races with the horse in California, won the 2018 Kentucky Derby. In doing so, the horse broke the 136-year-old "curse of Apollo" by winning the Kentucky Derby without having raced at 2 years of age. The last time this feat was accomplished was by Apollo in the 1882 race. Two weeks later, Justify and Smith won the 2018 Preakness Stakes and then, on June 9, 2018, at the 150th Belmont Stakes, Justify, ridden by Smith, became the 13th Triple Crown winner. In doing so, Smith, at age 52, became the oldest jockey to win a Triple Crown. On December 28, 2019, Mike Smith surpassed Jerry Bailey for most grade 1 wins by a jockey with 217 wins.

Price: 39.99 USD

Location: Ballston Spa, New York

End Time: 2025-02-01T19:44:12.000Z

Shipping Cost: 6 USD