By Dick Jerardi
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at Parx Racing, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday at Aqueduct.
Which leaves apprentice jockey Christopher Elliott time to do exactly two things.
“Sleeping and riding, that’s all we do,” Elliott said Monday morning while seated on a bench next to the Parx paddock. He had left New York less than seven hours before (3:30 a.m.) to get to Parx to work four horses. Before he left Aqueduct Sunday afternoon, he rode the last race and won it on 58-1 Last Glory who paid a cool $118 to win. Now, for the first time, he was set to ride all nine at Parx where his father Stewart rode with such distinction for so long that he was voted into the inaugural class of the Parx Hall of Fame.
Elliott, 18, speaks with his father every day, sometimes after every race. Stew watches Chris ride in the afternoon and then son watches dad ride at night.
Stewart, who will turn 60 next year, is the leading rider at Remington Park with 66 wins. It was 10 years ago when Chris’s father and mother Lilibeth left the comfort of their home in Lambertville, N.J. and home riding base at Parx to ride the Kentucky circuit. The Elliotts went on to Southern California for a time and now Stewart rides the Remington/Lone Star/Sam Houston circuit.
When he was 14 and watched his father win a stakes at Del Mar, Chris first began to think he wanted to be a jockey.
“I never even thought about it (before),” Elliott said. “Watching that, it kind of sparked it for me.”
Stewart Elliott has been riding since 1981. He has taken 35,774 mounts with 5,753 wins, 25th all-time and eighth among active riders.
“He’s been a huge help,” Elliott said. “I look up to him a lot.”
He has watched his dad win the 2004 Kentucky Derby on Smarty Jones “probably a thousand times.”
What he sees every time is a split second decision that made all the difference as the horses headed into the first turn. Smarty and Elliott were in the middle of five horses, two to his outside, two to his inside. Drop back and who knows what might have happened. Be aggressive, get a position and find out if Smarty was good enough. Stew went for it, left the other four behind, got a great position and Smarty proved more than good enough.
“That was the winning move, that was it,” Elliott said. “Perfect ride.”
Elliott was very young, but has vivid memories of his time watching his father ride at Parx.
“He had a big fanbase here and it was really cool,” Elliott said.
Stewart won 969 races between 2001 and 2004, the vast majority at Parx. He is absolutely one of the best ever to ride regularly at the track.
Once he decided he wanted to ride, Chris headed for Ocala, Fla, where he got to ride eight to 10 horses every day. When he was ready this spring, he took his first mount on April 21, two days after his 18th birthday, at Lone Star. He promptly won with that first ride on a 6-1 shot named Ru Mor Starter.
“Winning on that horse, it was really unbelievable,” Elliott said.
A few days later, he rode against his dad for the first time. And there they were together in the stretch, Stew’s mount eventually pulling away to win with Chris second.
“We were battling it out,” Chris said. “After the race, I said ‘man, you got me.’ It was very, very cool.”
The Elliotts have a “home” in Bowling Green, Kentucky, but, Chris said, “we are never there.”
Traveling all over has “been great, gotten to meet a lot of different people, seeing the different tracks and different horses, it’s been really cool,” Elliott said.
He went 4-for-81 at Lone Star this year, but that was mostly about getting to ride more than winning. There are fewer opportunities for apprentices there so when he was ready to start winning, he came east to ride at Monmouth Park and now at Parx and Aqueduct.
“Time to go back home where it all started,” Elliott said. “It’s been great. I love it here.”
And the trainers clearly like how Elliott rides. He is smooth, smart and polished. He won some races at Monmouth this summer and has won a few more this fall at Aqueduct. Getting more chances on more live horses, he is 22-14-22 from 142 mounts at Parx. He has ridden in 429 races all told since that first one with 44 wins, 32 seconds and 54 thirds.
“What’s helped me learn is just riding races,” Elliott said. “I’ve gotten to ride a lot of different horses.”
He typically spends an hour on his IPad the night before the races going over his mounts the next day, studying past performances, watching videos and formulating a game plan.
Nowhere was that more obvious than with his second mount at Monmouth after he won with his first. He rode 34-1 shot Reclusive in the Regret Stakes.
“I’ll never forget it,” Elliott said.
And why would he? He was way back early, but smoothly brought his mount to the leaders in the stretch and blew right on by.
A favorite horse so far?
“Reclusive, for sure.”
As for those nine Monday at Parx, a win at 5-1, two thirds, a fourth and a few uplaced on longshots, a fairly typical day for a jockey.
Elliott’s immediate goal is to contend for an Eclipse Award as leading apprentice jockey. When prompted, he said he would be thrilled to get on the kinds of top stakes horses his dad has ridden through the years. For now, Christopher Elliott just wants to ride as much as he can, learn as he goes, improve and set the foundation for a long, successful career.
