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Horse Racing - Famous Jockeys Bios
Chris McCarron
After working as a groom and horse walker, McCarron began riding in 1974. Racing mostly at Bowie Race Track in Maryland and Penn National in Pennsylvania, McCarron set records for both winners, with 547, and mounts with 2,199 in 1974. He won the Eclipse Award as the best jockey of the year.
McCarron led in victories again with 648 in 1975, but didn't really come into his own until 1977, when he began riding against better competition at Hollywood Park. He started to accept fewer mounts but riding in more prestigious races, McCarron then led in victories with 405 and money won with $7,663.
McCarron has won two Kentucky Derbys, two Preakness Stakes, and two Belmonts, he has reigned as the nation's leading rider by money won four times and by races won on three occasions. His Triple Crown record has been exemplary with 12 first- or second-place finishes from 38 mounts.
McCarron was the top money winner again in 1981, with $8,397,604; 1984, with $12,045,813; and 1991, with $14,456,073. In 1983, McCarron became the youngest jockey ever to achieve both $50 million in career earnings and more than 3,000 career wins.
McCarron’s first came in 1986, when he rode Danzig Connection to a victory in the Belmont Stakes. The following year, he captured the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness with Alysheba, who won the Eclipse Award as the three-year-old of the year.
Fans call him the Spoiler, his reputation as one of racing's most gifted riders was enhanced in 1996, when he guided Alphabet Soup to victory in the Breeders' Cup Classic, ruining Cigar's farewell, and the following year, when he and Touch Gold won the Belmont Stakes.
McCarron also won the 1992 Preakness with Pine Bluff, the 1994 Kentucky Derby with Go for Gin, and the 1997 Belmont with Touch Gold. In Breeders' Cup winnings, McCarron ranks second to Pat Day among jockeys. McCarron has ridden nine Breeders' Cup winners including five in the Classic: Alysheba (1988), Sunday Silence (1989), Alphabet Soup (1996) and Tiznow (2000 & 2001).
During 2003, McCarron ranked sixth all-time with 7,139 wins and third in earnings with $264,380,651.
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