Smith wins Bill Shoemaker Award

Powered by victories on Royal Delta in the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic and Mizdirection

in the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, Hall of Fame rider Mike Smith has won the Bill

Shoemaker Award as the most outstanding jockey of the 29th Breeders' Cup World

Championships, held this past Friday and Saturday at Santa Anita

Park.

This is the first Shoemaker Award for Smith, who became the all-time winner

in Breeders' Cup victories by a jockey on Friday, when he notched his 16th win,

breaking the tie for most victories he held with the retired Hall of Fame jockey

Jerry Bailey. Smith increased his win total to 17 all time when he guided home

7-1 Mizdirection on Saturday.

The 47-year-old Smith from Roswell, New Mexico, also picked up a second-place

finish on Mucho Macho Man in the Breeders' Cup Classic and a third-place finish

on Atigun in Friday's Marathon. Smith's 28 total points bested Garrett Gomez, a

four-time Shoemaker Award winner, by two points in a 10-5-3-1 scoring system

based on first through fourth-place finishes.

"I've been trying to win this award since it was first started," Smith said

of the trophy started in 2003 and named in honor of the late Hall of Fame

jockey. "I thought I had a shot at it last year when I won on Drosselmeyer in

the Classic but Johnny (Velazquez) just beat me out. I know it's an award that

Garrett, Johnny and a lot of us really want to win.

"Bill Shoemaker was to our sport what Babe Ruth was to baseball."

Gomez made the competition extremely close with his win on Beholder in the Juvenile Fillies, two second-place finishes (Grassy -- Marathon;

Marketing Mix -- Filly & Mare Turf) and two third-place finishes (Switch --

Filly and Mare Sprint; Reneesgotzip -- Turf Sprint).

Previous 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

Bet Horseracing Free Online at TwinSpires.com