Burt Bacharach at the Races

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Jockeys Extreme At Meals
LITTLE ROCK
In Shreveport to cover the Super Derby, a friend and his wife had to do one of those seafood buffets with the jambalaya, crawfish, shrimp, and scrumptious balls of fat called hush puppies.


The turf writer and spouse wound up at the same table with jockey Randy Romero, who gobbled down everything in sight, excused himself and then made another trip through the buffet line. When he again left the table, the woman asked for an explanation.


Jockeys into immediate weight loss call it flipping — the more urbane term is purge — and it’s just part of their lifestyle.


Anybody who is 5-feet-6 or taller and weighs 110 or so either has a metabolism that is the envy of every fashion model, sticks to a strict diet and workout plan, spends hours in a sweatbox, or does something else to the extreme.


Former rider Eddie Donnally entertained Oaklawn Park pressbox inhabitants with stories about his favorite — running a needle through a canned new potato, attaching a string to the needle, lowering the potato into his gullet until the juices were gone and then pulling it up.


Laffit Pincay Jr. was flying first class from one coast to the other when the flight attendant came by for his meal order from an appetizing menu. Pincay asked if the airline still had peanuts. He asked for three, split them in half and got by on them until he landed in New York.


Jockeys routinely regurgitate such horror stories, and Shane Shellers is among those who would like to make a change. He says weight limits for riders have been in granite for too many years. Part of his crusade took shape when he gained more than 20 pounds during a two-year period while recovering from injuries. To ride again, he had to shed those pounds. He weighs 117, heavier than most jockeys.


Among others, he has the support of composer-horseman Burt Bacharach who took out a full page ad in The Daily Racing Form on the day of the Belmont to endorse Sellers. In all caps, the ad begins, “IT’S TIME TO PROTECT OUR SUPER-ATHLETES, OUR JOCKEYS.â€￾


It goes on to say that most jockeys have less than 6 percent body fat and that a body begins to eat away its own muscle and organ tissue when body fat is below 5 percent.


The ad suggest raising the scale of weights nationwide and mandatory nutrition education for jockeys.


Racing secretaries at a particular track write the conditions of each race — distance, sex of horse, age of horse, weight assignment of rider — and the minimums vary. At Oaklawn Park, Pat Pope tends to favor lighter weights, assigning horses in everyday races as little as 108 or 109 pounds. Same in Kentucky. In New York, the minimums tend to be higher.


The 5-foot-3 Sellers, the leading rider at Keeneland on several occasions, wants the minimum raised three pounds.


If a 117-pound rider climbs aboard a horse who can race carrying 110 pounds, there is a pre-race announcement of the overweight. There is no penalty except the possibility of lost business. When a horse gets beat in a photo, a thick crust pizza or a loaded baked potato can make a difference.


A couple of pounds will not break down a 1,000-pound thoroughbred. Exercise riders routinely weigh 120 pounds or more and still-developing 3-year-olds are asked to carry 126 pounds in each of the Triple Crown races, including the 11&Mac218;2-mile Belmont.


Rather than starve, some top riders such as Steve Cauthen and Cash Asmussen chose to ply their trade overseas where horses carry more weight.


Trainer D. Wayne Lukas is on the other side, simply arguing that jockeys should be small and implying that Sellers has taken one too many spills.


Over the years, people have gotten taller — former Oaklawn leading rider Calvin Borel is almost 5-9 and Perry Compton pushes 6-0.


Raising the minimum weight to 114 or so is reasonable. No matter what the minimum, some jockey hopeful will be overweight and unhappy.

Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media Group’s Arkansas News Bureau. E-mail: hking@arkansasnews.com