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Smith earns second straight Bill Shoemaker Award

Mike Smith scored his third win of BC weekend aboard Mizdirection in the Turf Sprint (Breeders' Cup Ltd.)
Propelled by three wins over the two-day Breeders' Cup World Championships, Mike Smith won his second consecutive Bill Shoemaker Award as the most outstanding jockey of the 30th edition of the event, held at Santa Anita Park on Friday and Saturday.

Smith scored back-to-back victories in the Breeders' Cup Marathon and Juvenile Turf with London Bridge and Outstrip, respectively, on Friday, and was victorious aboard Mizdirection in the Turf Sprint on Saturday, extending his all-time lead in Breeders' Cup victories by a jockey to 20.

Combined with a second-place finish on Laugh Track in the Sprint, a third-place finish on Emollient in the Filly & Mare Turf and a fourth-place finish on Royal Delta in the Distaff, Smith's 37-point total edged Gary Stevens by four points in a 10-5-3-1 scoring system based on the first- through fourth-place finishes in the 14 Breeders' Cup races.

Stevens, 50, enjoying a remarkable return to the races after a seven-year absence, booted home winners in the Breeders' Cup Distaff and Classic with Beholder and Mucho Macho Man, respectively. He was awarded five points for finishing second in the Juvenile Fillies on She's a Tiger, following a disqualification from first place; and earned another second-place finish on Havana in the Juvenile and a third-place finish on Indy Point in the Turf.

The Bill Shoemaker Award is named in honor of one of the greatest jockeys in the history of Thoroughbred racing. Shoemaker, a winner of the Kentucky Derby four times, won more than 8,800 races in a career that spanned more than 40 years. In 1987, at 56, Shoemaker won the Breeders' Cup Classic aboard Ferdinand.

"It was a great honor to win the award last year for the first time but winning it a second time means much more to me because it's so much harder to do," the 48-year-old Smith said, before adding about the late Shoemaker, "As small as he was, he was a giant of a man on horseback and off."

Bill Shoemaker Award winners:

2003: Alex Solis
2004: John Velazquez
2005: Garrett Gomez
2006: Frankie Dettori
2007: Garrett Gomez
2008: Garrett Gomez
2009: Julien Leparoux
2010: Garrett Gomez
2011: John Velazquez
2012: Mike Smith
2013 Mike Smith

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