As the Churchill Downs bugler played "My Old Kentucky Home," an emotional Pat Day officially hung up his saddle today during a press conference at the Louisville, Ky. track, where he is the all-time leading rider with 2,481 wins, including 155 stakes wins.Full article
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Day retires with 8,803 career victories, which ranks him fourth behind all-time leader Laffit Pincay, Jr.'s career total of 9,530. Day is the all-time leader in career earnings by a jockey as his mounts earned $297,912,019.
Day won the Kentucky Derby (gr. I) in 1992 with W.C. Partee's Lil E Tee. His Triple Crown resume includes a record five Preakness Stakes (gr. I) and three wins in the Belmont Stakes (gr. I). He rode in a record 21 consecutive Kentucky Derbys, a streak that ended when hip surgery forced him to miss this year's renewal.
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The Colorado native said he would immediately focus his energy on his work with the Racetrack Chaplaincy of America, a national organization of chaplains from U.S. racetracks that serves the spiritual, physical, emotional, and social/educational needs of the workforce at those tracks.
In addition to speaking at chaplaincy fund-raising events, Day said, he wants to spend time walking through the backstretch with Racetrack Chaplaincy of America's 58 sanctioned chaplains and then giving a message of eternal hope to groups of backstretch workers....
Via A man worthy of our esteem - and a superb witness by Miss O'Hara.
Pat Day famously had drug and alcohol problems before he became a born-again Christian in the early '80s. It's more common for men to become heroes and then go to ruin, but with Day it was the other way around. He went from being a bad example to being a caring, winning guy. For more, see Wikipedia/Pat_Day.
See also Pat Day’s “What a Difference a Day Makes Tour” at RTCA.
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