![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Smith,-Mike-1-360-7.29.16.jpg\")
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Mike Smith \u00a9 Benoit Photo<\/p>\n
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The amazing Mr. Mike Smith has a birthday this Sunday. But hold on a minute and hear him out. He knows what you\u2019re thinking, but he\u2019s here now to let you know just what\u2019s really real.<\/p>\n
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For the past decade (and for years before that) the Hall of Fame jockey \u2013 the man who has put together a stellar racing career that is virtually unmatched \u2013 has been heralded for the fact that though he has been riding his way through his 50s, he\u2019s still out there alongside the young guys and still showing them more than a thing or two along the way.<\/p>\n
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And this year was supposed to be the one \u2013 the one where he hit the BIG SIX O.<\/p>\n
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But hold on\u2026.there\u2019s more to the story.<\/p>\n
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So let\u2019s go back to Smith\u2019s beginnings. He was born in a New Mexico town named Roswell (which became \u2018famous\u2019 for a supposed UFO crash there in the 1940s), then raised in a farming town called Dexter about 15 miles away. For a short spell, his father was a jockey. And he had an uncle who broke and trained horses. From very early on, he was into the horses.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI rode match races at 11,\u201d he remembers. \u201cWe\u2019d ride in New Mexico and Texas, too. There was a little circuit. They\u2019d bring some Quarter Horses up from Mexico and, man, were they fast. I saw All American Futurity winners get beat by Mexican match horses.\u201d<\/p>\n
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So now Smith is 15 and he\u2019s getting serious about wanting to ride Thoroughbreds. He goes to apply for a jockey license and is told he has to have a legal guardian sign for him. His uncle volunteers and next thing you know he\u2019s got a license to ride.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBack then, they were a lot more loose about it,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI was only a couple of months away (from 16, the \u2018legal\u2019 age to ride) and it was no big deal. Over the years I tried a bunch of times to get it corrected, but I was told over and over \u2018Hey, you\u2019re in the system that way and it would be too much trouble to correct it.\u2019 So I just left it alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Well, now he\u2019s an almost-16-year-old with a license and next he needs to get a horse to ride. He tries and tries around the backstretch of Santa Fe Downs, but nobody was willing to give the little kid (\u201cI only weighed about 100 pounds\u201d) a shot.<\/p>\n
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That was until he made a good impression at the barn of a trainer named Wilson Brown \u2013 and more specifically with his son, Todd<\/p>\n
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Wilson Brown, now 82 and retired in Stillwater, OK, remembers clearly the circumstances around Smith\u2019s first winner.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI had a nice enough New Mexican-bred horse named Future Man,\u201d the former trainer says. \u201cI\u2019d turned him out for the winter, fired his legs, got some good works in him and we were ready to run.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMy son, Todd, was giving me a push on this young apprentice that would come around the barn. \u2018He\u2019s so polite,\u2019 he said. (Smith remembers back then: \u201cI was \u2018Yes, sir, No, sir, Yes, ma\u2019m\u2019 to everyone.\u201d)<\/p>\n
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\u201cSo,\u201d Brown recalls, \u201cI said all right and we gave him a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
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And on June 12, 1982, Mike Smith and Future Man both became winners.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAfter that, business picked up,\u201d Smith states. \u201cI rode a couple more winners, but I knew I still didn\u2019t know enough. I\u2019d only been riding Quarter Horses \u2018til then and I didn\u2019t want to start my \u2018bug\u2019 until I was really ready to ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Then another touch of kismet blew Smith\u2019s way. He\u2019s made a friend on the backstretch in a successful apprentice named O.A. Martinez. And when Smith heard that O.A. was going to Louisiana Downs with a string of horses for trainer J.J. Pletcher, he asked to come along.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey said I could and it was a real experience for me,\u201d Smith recollected. \u201cI stayed there for a month and just watched. I watched everything. They had some very good riders there back then \u2013 Larry Snyder, John Lively \u2013 and I took it all in. I learned a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Oh, and as a side note, the car trip to Bossier City, Louisiana, had an interesting makeup. J.J. did the driving and O.A. rode shotgun. In the back was young Mr. Smith and another teenager \u2013 fellow by the name of Todd Pletcher. Two Hall of Famers side by side on their way to learning about horse racing. You can\u2019t make this stuff up, paley.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAfter I got back to New Mexico, I was ready to go,\u201d Smith stated, \u201cand things took off. I was riding winners, winners, winners. Then I headed to Arkansas, Nebraska, Kentucky \u2013 all over the Midwest. After that I went to New York in 1989.\u201d<\/p>\n
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His star rose high in New York and subsequently he came to California in 2001. By then his exploits and reputation had grown so large that the Hall of Fame came calling in 2003.<\/p>\n
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Name something special in racing for a rider and Smith has done it: more than 5,700 winning rides; more than $355 million in purses won; a Triple Crown winner; a two-time Kentucky Derby winner; winner of the most Breeders\u2019 Cup races; more than 660 graded stakes with, amazingly, more than 240 of them Grade Is. The list is unprecedented.<\/p>\n
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You can put his name next to that of some of the sports champions of champions. \u201cBig Money Mike\u201d (a well-earned nickname) was the pilot for the likes of superstars such as Holy Bull, Lure, Sky Beauty, Heavenly Prize, Royal Delta, Shared Belief, Drosselmeyer, Prairie Bayou, Skip Away, Azeri, Arrogate, Songbird and Justify.<\/p>\n
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![\"Zenyatta\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Zenyatta_10.jpg\")
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And then there\u2019s just about everyone\u2019s favorite \u2013 the mighty mare Zenyatta, the star of stars and the one who makes the rider\u2019s heart warm every time he gives her a thought. (\u201cUn-be-lieve-a-bal.\u201d)<\/p>\n
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So anyway, back to the point here: Mike Smith still rolling after all these years. He told our Notes writer Jim Charvat last year that one of the keys to his longevity is that he \u201csucked at golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
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As a young rider, he\u2019d go out with his fellow jocks on an off day and try putting the golf ball in the hole. He wasn\u2019t very good at it.<\/p>\n
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\u201cFinally I said that\u2019s it \u2013 no more golf, I\u2019m going to the gym,\u201d he declared. \u201cI was so competitive I had to find another way to go. And I\u2019ve been in the gym ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n
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His two-hour gym workouts have become legendary. He\u2019s got a personal trainer at Del Mar and another up at Santa Anita. Young apprentices come around and try to keep up with the \u201cold man\u201d in the gym. Not a one has.<\/p>\n
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How does he do it after all these years?<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s not just one thing,\u201d he says. He notes the model of Claiborne Farms: \u2018Just do the usual unusually well.\u2019<\/p>\n
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\u201cGo back to the basics,\u201d he states. \u201cIf you\u2019re a professional athlete you\u2019re going to have slumps. All athletes do. And that\u2019s when you have to put those basics in play; you have to do them really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
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He also credits his Mom (who didn\u2019t want him to be a rider; she wanted him to stay in school) for this bit of wisdom: \u2018Be careful who you hang out with. Always surround yourself with good people.\u201d He says he remembers that one again and again and does his best to make sure that it happens.<\/p>\n
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As he starts to near the possible end of his riding days, Smith still is reaching out for that one last hurrah. \u201cI want to win one more Derby. Three would be nice,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBob (Baffert) just told me he\u2019s got a 2-year-old for me,\u201d Smith offers with a smile. \u201cThat gets me excited. One more time would be perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
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So if you see Mike this weekend, offer him a \u2018Happy Birthday\u2019 salute. But don\u2019t be saying \u201cHappy 60.\u201d This one is, in fact, No. 59, and he wants everyone to know that that is absolutely true.<\/p>\n
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And it\u2019s also true that despite the years, he\u2019s still got that fire in his belly. He\u2019ll continue to take on teenagers and 20-year-olds and show them how it\u2019s done in a scenario that couldn\u2019t possibly exist in any other sport. But then, of course, we know the reason why: there is only one Mike Smith.<\/p>\n
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