In the third instalment of our series, the US riding legend talks to Steve Dennis about the day he deputised for Frankie Dettori on a Godolphin great at the royal meeting
There is nothing like having the perfect preparation before riding the best horse in the world in one of the biggest races of the year at the most famous race meeting of them all. This, though, was nothing like having the perfect preparation.
In the afternoon, the US Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey was set to ride the great Dubai Millennium, hot favourite for the G1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2000. In the early hours of the morning, Bailey woke up in a cold sweat, in great pain, in trouble.
“It was a kidney stone,” says Bailey, 67, recalling the agony. “I was awake at 4am in my hotel room and I knew I had a problem.
“I ran a bath as hot as I could stand, sat in it for two hours, keeping the water hot, and slowly the pain went away. It wasn’t the best way to start a big day but the stone didn’t bother me during the race. I just did what I had to do.”
The pain had gone but the kidney stone remained, and after Bailey had returned home it flared up again and he needed surgery to have it removed. “Too large to pass,” he says darkly, sending an involuntary shiver through the male psyche.
It was a medical issue that had brought Bailey to Royal Ascot in the first place. Three weeks earlier, Frankie Dettori had been remarkably lucky to survive a plane crash in which the pilot died, the Italian ace dragged from the burning wreckage by fellow rider Ray Cochrane and blessedly sustaining little more than a broken ankle.
At that time Dettori was the retained rider for global powerhouse Godolphin, which meant that Sheikh Mohammed had to set about finding a replacement jockey for his army of runners at the royal meeting. In typically imaginative style, he cast the net wide.
“My agent Ron Anderson called and said that Sheikh Mohammed would like me to come and ride Dubai Millennium at Royal Ascot,” says Bailey, who is now a respected racing broadcaster on NBC Sports.
“It was a quick ‘yes’,” he goes on. “I didn’t need a lot of time to think about whether I should take the ride on a horse who might be the best in the world.”
Deep impression
Bailey had ridden against Dubai Millennium three months earlier in the Dubai World Cup, finishing last aboard Worldly Manner as Dubai Millennium breezed to a six-length victory, and that brief encounter had left a deep impression.
He and fellow Hall of Famer John Velazquez, who had also been called up to share the Godolphin duties, arrived in the UK a few days before the start of the royal meeting and began acquainting themselves with the task ahead.
“Sheikh Mohammed laid on a helicopter to take me from my hotel in London to Newmarket, where for a couple of hours he and I and Frankie went over videos of the horses I would ride,” says Bailey.
“The following day, John and I walked the course at Ascot. One of the main things that struck me was the incline through the stretch, something I couldn’t pick up from the video tapes, something that gave me a greater appreciation of the demands the track placed upon a horse.
“The Aga Khan’s horse [Sendawar] was our main rival, but I knew all about Dubai Millennium’s very high cruising speed and I planned to ride him on the front end, and then try to spread the field out as we turned into the stretch.
“I wanted to make it so that Sendawar had to come and get us up that incline, I wanted to draw the punch out of his finishing effort.”
Bailey makes light of the fact that he never had a chance to sit on Dubai Millennium until ten minutes before the race – “It’s not difficult, honestly. It’s like getting into a rental car – you know how to drive, don’t you? “Different vehicle but same method. Maybe adjust the seat a little, that’s all. A horse runs best when running the way he likes to run, and I just tried not to get in his way.”
He talks of the way he felt pressure, riding the favourite, a horse on whom he was expected to win, even though he was well aware of the stats that say favourites win only one-third of the time and get beat two out of three.
“Some favourites you’d feel apprehensive about,” he says. “But not this one. He was a great horse, an absolutely overwhelming horse at the top of his game.”
Unexpected facet
However, one of the most unexpected facets of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, the feature race of the second day of the meeting, was the betting market. In the newspapers, through the morning, the Saeed Bin Suroor-trained Dubai Millennium – winner of eight of his nine races and three G1s, including the Dubai World Cup – was the odds-on favourite.
Indeed, when Bailey was lifted into the saddle he was on the favourite, but by the time they reached the start the situation had changed, with heavy money for Sendawar – a crack miler but less accomplished at the ten-furlong distance – causing Dubai Millennium’s price to drift.
In a field of six where only two mattered, Sendawar was sent away 6-5 favourite over Dubai Millennium at 5-4. Now the statistics were on Bailey’s side, not that he needed any help.
“He was always going strongly. It was almost too easy,” says Bailey, before descending from the sublime to the ridiculous. “You could have won on him.”
Dubai Millennium broke on top, employed that high cruising speed to open up a daylight lead, had Sendawar off the bridle half a mile out and finished off his race strongly under a hand-ride, strolling home by a startling eight lengths. Sendawar, whose stamina was unequal to the task of chasing such a powerful galloper, faded into fourth.
Having taken advice from Dettori on the way to ride the horse, Bailey continued to follow orders when it came to getting off the horse.
Flying dismount
Dettori was famous for his flying dismount – which he had borrowed from Angel Cordero, who borrowed it from Avelino Gomez – and Bailey was ready to deputise in that role too.
“Frankie asked me to do it,” says Bailey. “I mean, any rider can do it, it’s not difficult, but it wasn’t my style.
“But I’m glad I did it, it was the right thing for me to do it in those circumstances.”
It was the only flying dismount of the week for Bailey, who had ten other rides across the meeting but no more winners, two third places being the best of the rest. Dubai Millennium was the one that mattered most to everyone, though, and Bailey was delighted to be part of it.
“It was great to go over there, it was a wonderful week and a great feeling to win on such a very special horse,” he says. “It was just a shame I didn’t have more time to spare.
“My wife Suzee and our son Justin had a great time sightseeing, the Tower of London, Houses of Parliament, all the tourist fun. I didn’t have a chance for any of that, and I didn’t get to meet the Queen, which would have been really nice.”
Royalty may have passed him by, but a brush with the racing equivalent left Bailey with another happy memory of his week at Ascot. The rivalry between Godolphin and Coolmore is woven into the fabric of the sport, but nevertheless the appreciation of a job very well done knows no partisan bounds.
“Suzee and Justin and I went out for dinner that night, an Italian place in London [Scalini, the restaurant also visited by Zac Purton],” says Bailey.
“We had a lovely dinner, time came to leave, I asked for the bill. The waiter told me ‘don’t worry, sir, the gentleman sitting in the corner has picked up the bill for your family’.
“I looked over and it was John Magnier. The opposition, you might say. Such a kind thing to do.”
One of a kind
In his time in the saddle Bailey won almost 6,000 races, a record seven Eclipse Awards, 15 races at the Breeders’ Cup, four Dubai World Cups, and the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont twice apiece. A list of the best horses he rode starts with the outstanding champion Cigar, but not far behind that paragon is the horse he partnered just once, but remembers very fondly.
“I was very fortunate to ride Dubai Millennium. Sheikh Mohammed chose me but he could have chosen anyone,” he says.
“He wasn’t just any horse, he was one of the greatest we’ve seen. I can’t really compare him with the other top-class horses I rode because I never rode him on dirt, but for him to do what he did on both surfaces shows just what sort of horse he was.
Tragically, Dubai Millennium died of grass sickness ten months after his Ascot tour de force, aged five, leaving one crop at stud.
“He was one of a kind,” says Bailey. “It was such a shame what happened to him but they do say the brightest stars can flame out the quickest. And he was one of the very brightest of stars.”
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