BY MARK KLAAS
mklaas@auburn-reporter.com
Success cannot change Jennifer Whitaker – even now, eight months removed from her finest hour.
Emerald Downs’ all-time leading woman jockey had much to celebrate on Aug. 17, riding 10-to-1 shot Wasserman to a stirring, come-from-behind victory in the 73rd Longacres Mile, the jewel of Northwest thoroughbred racing.
Whitaker didn’t realize the significance then, but understands it now as she focuses on a new season at the Auburn oval.
“I didn’t think about it until later,” Whitaker said on a break from exercising horses at the track. “But it’s awesome … that race, that horse … the way we won it, coming from so far back.”
No woman in the reins had won the Mile. But the Auburn jockey – a no-nonsense, seasoned rider and hard-working jack-of-all-trades in the stable – pulled it off with a stunning performance.
The victory, worth $137,500, also brought Whitaker’s boss to the Mile winner’s circle for the first time. Howard Belvoir owned, bred and trained Wasserman.
That connection – trainer, rider and horse – is expected to go to the post in the seventh race tonight when Emerald Downs opens the chutes to its 14th season, a 91-day, 35-stakes meet that will end Sept. 27. First post is 6 p.m.
Wasserman is scheduled to go off in a $20,000, 5 1/2-furlong, star-filled allowance race.
Whitaker and Belvoir make no promises about producing an encore to last year’s dream season.
Wasserman, with Whitaker aboard, captured four stakes via photo finish, including a dramatic upset in the Grade III Mile. Wasserman, last year’s Horse of the Meeting, is the track’s all-time leading earner with $422,412.
Whitaker, who rides almost exlusively for Belvoir, is keeping a level-headed approach to the coming season as Mile queen.
“I don’t think we can do better, but we can try,” said Whitaker, who received the track’s Top Riding Achievement award last year. “We hope to have just as good a meet. You’re only as good as your last race.”
Even in the afterglow of her Mile race, Whitaker went back to basics. The work is never done. On the first day back at the barn for winter training, she rode 17 horses.
“I couldn’t walk the next four or five days,” she admitted. “Too much time spent on the couch.”
Whitaker has tallied more wins in a season – a record-setting 47 for an apprentice during the 2001 meet. But in each of the last two years, she has stepped it up, winning more than $500,000 in purse earnings.
Whitaker, a Washington native, is in the track’s top 10 for career wins (321), stakes victories (15) and earnings ($3.4 million).
Proving to be a tough competitor in stakes company, Whitaker earned a career-high $516,012 last year. Along with the Mile, she guided Wasserman to wins in the coveted Governor’s Handicap and Muckleshoot Tribal Classic.
“You couldn’t have written a script any better,” Belvoir said of Whitaker’s Mile moment. “Jennifer works so hard, and she truly likes her job. In this business, you must really enjoy your work because you’re not in it for the money.”
Whitaker, 37, has endured the lows to reach the highs. She has overcome injuries to stay in the game.
In 2007, she broke her wrist and tore three tendons, yet rode with a brace before eventually yielding to surgery. She also persevered through a torn shoulder the same year.
Whitaker observed and learned from others. She has matured into a solid rider who can win either from up front or off the pace, with finesse or power.
“She’s a great rider,” said fellow jockey and competitor Ricky Frazier. “When you’ve won as many races as she has won by a head, you have to give her credit.
“She works really hard and is very athletically fit,” Frazier added. “She focuses on one barn and knows the horses. She rides them every day. She has a good rapport with the horses.”
Perhaps the one rider who influenced Whitaker most over the years was veteran Sandi Gann, who retired last year from an injury-beset career to become a trainer.
“She was amazing. She never gave up. She never complained,” Whitaker said.
Like Gann, Whitaker is quiet, preferring to keep a low profile. She avoids the spotlight and accepts the attention only when it means guiding a well-toned Thoroughbred through the winner’s circle.
Whitaker is proof that persistence and hard work pay off. And that average seasons can become seasons under the sun.
“Looking back, I’m still in awe,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the (Mile win). I’m thrilled and grateful. It’s really humbling because it’s a prestigious race.
“But for me, every year is a new year, and you’re always looking to your next race.”
Noteworthy
Wasserman rival The Great Face, the 2007 Mile winner owned by track president Ron Crockett, is scheduled to debut in same allowance race tonight, which would be unprecedented. Two Mile champions have never squared off in the same race at the track. Like The Great Face, Wasserman is a Washington-bred, 7-year-old gelding sired by the great Cahill Road. Juan Gutierrez will ride The Great Face. … Tonight’s allowance race showdown also is expected to include Margo’s Gift, who captured the $250,000 Favorite Trick Breeders’ Cup Stakes as a 2-year-old in ‘07. Frazier, who guided the Doris Harwood-trained filly to the prominent win two years ago, again will get the call. … Frazier, the track’s leading rider in three of the last five years, leads all jockey with 617 wins since 2002. He was first in earnings ($1.2 million) and tied for first in stakes wins (seven) last year. … A total of 40 new flat-screen, 32-inch television sets will be given away to lucky fans, five after every race, in tonight’s card. Participants for the drawings must be 18 and older and on-track to win. … The first stakes is April 25 – a $30,000 6-furlong opener for 3-year-old fillies. The Auburn Stakes, a 6-furlong race for colts and geldings, is April 26.
