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Retired rider Davis saddles first winner as trainer
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| Former jockey Robbie Davis celebrated his first win as a trainer, with his daughter in the pilot's
seat
(NYRA/Adam Coglianese Photography) |
Former jockey Robbie Davis got his first win as a trainer Saturday
afternoon as 39-1 shot Sandyinthesun, ridden by his daughter, Jackie,
got up by a nose to win the 7TH race at Aqueduct.
"To me, it's better than any win I ever rode," said Davis, who
co-owns the four-year-old gelded son of Say Florida Sandy with Thomas
Ponzarella. "It was an incredible race. It's unimaginable, the feeling."
Sandyinthesun, who is the only horse Davis has in training, returned
$81.50 for a $2 win bet as he won his first race in five starts.
"That was incredible. I am so happy," said Jackie Davis, who graduated from the North
American Racing Academy in Versailles, Kentucky, and rode her first
winner at the Big A in 2008. "This is the most exciting thing I've ever
done. This is like winning my first race." Sandyinthesun, for whom Davis and Ponzarella paid $700 as a yearling,
finished 11th in his first start at Saratoga Race Course in September, and was
then off the board in three subsequent races. After he finished eighth in his
most recent start on November 20, Davis equipped the New York-bred gelding with
blinkers and he responded Saturday with a solid surge between horses in the
stretch to win the 1 1/16-mile good turf race in a bob at the wire.
"I'm just so thankful to get this horse to the races," Davis said. "I'm just
so glad to be able to do this with Jackie and everybody here at Aqueduct. I'd
like to thank the good Lord. It's going to be a great Christmas for everybody." |
Davis, who with his wife, Marguerite, owns an 80-acre horse farm in upstate
New York near Saratoga, retired as a jockey in 2002 after winning 3,382 races
and $115,732,836 in purses. A former director of the Jockey's Guild, he served
as his daughter's agent for a time before taking out his trainer's license.
"We put the blinkers on him and he responded well with them," he said. "I
thought, we have one last shot on the turf so let me get the blinkers on him. I
always thought he was a turf horse and he finally responded for us.
"This is like our (pet) dog! We've had him since he was a year old. I just
couldn't be happier with the way he performed today. I gallop him, I ride him,
my kids ride him. I'm
ecstatic, just ecstatic. To be able to do it with my daughter and the family...I
just couldn't be happier with the way he performed today."
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