where I've been!

It's been sometime since I last updated my site. I sort of took a vacation to relax myself. Perhaps I need to tell you a little about me in order for you to understand. I grew up in California never being raised around horses or horse racing. A total city kid. Around my 21st birthday my best friend and his dad took me to the horse races for my very first time. It was so exciting to me. I wasn't as interested in the gambling as much as I was the competition and thrill I thought the jockeys must feel riding those horses. As I stood by the scales I began to notice that these guys were all about the same size as me. I was a small kid all my life but very athletic. I played Baseball and football up until the other kids began growing bigger and bigger making it impossible for me to continue playing those sports. So hear I was watching these incredible athletes perform and I instantly knew I wanted to do this. For a couple of years I went around the race track and other horse places looking for someone who could teach me to ride. At the track all I got was "your to old to learn know", "sorry kid we can't help you". Other places were similar in the fact that they could teach me about horses and how to ride one, but not the way jockey's do. I finally came across someone who told me about a hot walking school that Santa Anita had going on in the mornings for people who wanted to learn how to walk hots and get a job on the backside doing so. I jumped at the chance to learn more about this sport that was consuming me day and night. Every morning at 5:30 am I showed up and walked a couple of old retired race horses around a walking ring. Day after day I did this learning things from an former jockey and horseman. I dreamed of the day I could climb on top of one of those horses. I went from walking them to learning how to wrap there legs and putting on their tac. During this time I had learned my skill of walking hots and had been offered jobs on the backside. I never took any of the jobs because my dream was to be a jockey, not to walk hots. Finally after some time I went to a jockey school I had learned about up in castaic California. It was a pretty expensive school and I was still working as a janitor for a school district. I worked the swing shift of 2 to 11 which is how I was able to do my morning race track stuff. The scool was about a 2 hour drive so I literally had to get up at about 3:30 am to get there and start by 5:30 am. It was tuff because the other few kids that were there stayed there giving them more time to learn. Me I just had a few hours a day to try and pick this stuff up before driving back to get to work. It was also costing me a pretty penny and I still wasn't doing what I wanted to do most. I mainly rode bails of hay and tended to the horses after the others were done excercising them. When they were through I would get on a horse for about a half hour to learn myself. The hours and the drive were killing me. After a few months I could no longer afford to do it and had to quit going. I still did not know how to ride a horse. I kept trying at the track when I met another former jockey who was trying to start up his own jockey school. His name was Frank Garza and he know has his own jockey school at www.frankgarza.com . I was one of his first students and although he hadn't had an established place to ride horses on he did have a couple of places with riding rings. With that he was able to teach me the basics of riding. How to post, how to hold my reins, how to comunicate with the horse, I even learned how to break horses ect. Again his time was not cheap and it was a long drive to Moore Park, about the same distance as the first school. The main thing he did for me was make me comfortable on a horse and introduce me to people at Santa Anita. Evnetually I quit my job and started getting more serious about this. Once Frank taught me all that he could at the time, I started looking to learn more on my own. I never did learn what it was like to gallop a real race horse on a race track. There is a big difference. Frank set it up so that I would go to the race track and ride a horse I used to ride at the ranch. I would take the horse around the track one time and get my exercise license. Sounds simple enough. I went to Santa Anita to meet with trainer Ross Fenstamaker who was now training Just Skippin the horse I used to ride. He got me on the backside and set me up to take her out and excercise her. Once I was up on her back he instructed me to take her to the training track and gallop her around it. I was just thrilled to be at Santa Anita with all those race horses and all the jockey's I had been looking up to. We walk the horse down to the track and he turned me loose. I bagan taking her down onto the training track when I met up with the outrider coming the other direction. "Tracks closed Jock" he said to me as he passed by. I guess Ross didn't notice the time when he sent me out there. Back up I came and there was Ross on the fence. "whats wrong?" he asked. "The training tracks closed" I told him. With a questionable look on his face he said " well take her on the main track I guess."