By Dick Jerardi
Stewart Elliott’s first win was at Keystone Race Track on Jan. 31, 1981. His next win will be No. 6,000, making him just the 23rd jockey in American history to reach that milestone.
“It’s unbelievable really,” Elliott said. “It shows I’ve been very fortunate. I’m extremely grateful. It’s kind of hard to sink in that it’s been that many.”
It took Elliott just three mounts to win that first race. He remembered it like it was yesterday.
“It was a filly for my mom and dad,” he said. “Her name was Jack’s Ruby and she paid $108.”
They had been sprinting her. They decided to send her longer. She got loose under the 10-pound apprentice and they were gone.
More than 45 years later, Elliott has ridden in 37,054 races at 44 race tracks. He won more races (1,856) at Keystone/Philadelphia Park/Parx Racing than anywhere else. He also won 1,054 at old Suffolk Downs. He will win his 6,000th at Remington Park.
So many of the tracks where he rode (Atlantic City, Bowie, Garden State Park) are gone now, but Elliott, 61, rides on, winning more than 150 races almost every year at Sam Houston, Lone Star and Remington where he rides first call for trainer Steve Asmussen who has won more races than anybody in history. Asmussen and Elliott have won 798 races together.
Elliott went from Keystone/Atlantic City to New England where he had a long and very successful run. He came back to Philadelphia and kept right on winning. After too many brutal northeast winters, he headed for Kentucky, won his share there and also did very well in California before breaking a rib. One year at Oaklawn Park, Asmussen asked if Elliott would ride for him at Sam Houston on Oaklawn’s dark days. He accepted and they have been a great team ever since.
Elliott won 989 races the previous six years. He won an incredible 381 races in 1989. In his best four years at Parx from 2001-2004, he won 970 races. His mounts have won more than $133 million. He was a first ballot Parx Racing Hall of Famer.
And he was front and center August 1, 2025 when Smarty Jones was inducted into the Horse Racing Hall of Fame. As the only jockey ever to ride the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, Elliott knew Smarty better than anybody.
Smarty’s trainer John Servis first met Elliott when he had the bug and Servis was a jockey’s agent. When he went from agent to assistant trainer to trainer, Servis went with Elliott as his go-to rider. And when many were clamoring for him to get a big-name jockey to ride Smarty in 2004, Servis never wavered. Elliott was his guy on a $5,000 claimer and he would be his guy on one of the fastest horses of the 21st Century.
“He’s a strong finisher and he’s a smart rider,” Servis said. “He’s patient. You rarely see him put himself in a bad spot.”
Nowhere was that more evident than heading into the first turn of the Derby when Elliott found himself in the middle of five horses. He urged Smarty forward and the colt got away from the crowd and emerged from the turn in perfect position just a few lengths behind the leader. He put Smarty in the right spot and the colt did the rest.
“When you ride that long, he can tell you something about a horse,” Servis said. “You pretty much know what you’re doing.”
Elliott clearly knows what he’s doing. And he’s known for more than four decades.
“He keeps himself in great shape,” Servis said. “He’s always been disciplined with his weight.”
Elliott’s son Christopher is a solid rider on the New York circuit. In just his third year, he has already won 230 races. He is not likely to get to 6,000, but he is clearly a very talented young jockey who learned from one of the best.
That 6,000 list includes legends like Laffit Pincay, Chris McCarron, Angel Cordero, John Velazquez and Johnny Longden. Only five on the list are still active.
Elliott is not going to the Hall of Fame because he never had a chance to ride the kinds of stakes horses all the Hall of Famers on the list did. But when he got his chance in 2004, he rode Smarty Jones as well as any of them could have. That year, with the help of all those Smarty stakes wins and the $5 million bonus for winning the Rebel, Arkansas Derby and Kentucky Derby, Elliott’s mount earnings were $14,533,061, fourth nationally, just ahead of Jerry Bailey.
His house is near Kentucky Downs in Bowling Green, Kentucky. His “home” is the trailer he and his wife travel in from Houston to Dallas to Oklahoma City during the racing season.
“I’ve been fortunate to escape serious injuries,” Elliott said. “I’ve had minor things that haven’t kept me out that long.”
Thursday night at Remington, Elliott said he has several live mounts so it could very well be the moment for 6,000.
“I got some chances,” Stewart Elliott said. “With a little bit of luck, we’ll get it Thursday night.”
