Oldest jockey in Canada not planning to retire soon

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/05/2017 (3061 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If he were a professional football player or hockey player or a pro in most other sports, Jerry Pruitt would long ago have hung up his gear.

But as a senior citizen jockey at Assiniboia Downs and the oldest rider in Canada, Pruitt is still going strong and has no intention of abandoning the saddle anytime soon. He has ridden in 19,560 races, has 2,553 wins and his horses have earned more than $9 million.

“My body will tell me when,” he said.

He turns 66 on June 10 which also happens to be Assiniboia Downs’ birthday.

So what accounts for his longevity? Besides his enjoyment of the game (“I love winning,” he says), he is in the enviable position of not having to fight to retain riding weight (it’s a consistent 108 to 110 pounds, he says).

“I love my candy,” he admits.

Unlike most other jockeys, Pruitt says he is able to indulge frequently and digs into steak dinners — with baked potato, of course — without worrying about having to hit the sweat box the next day.
It helps, too, to have a wife, Lise, who loves the game as much as he does.  They own five horses — three that race and two weanlings — and she does the training. His son, Brady, 22, has worked as a groom and he has two daughters: Lexie, 16, and Sierra, 14, who does a bit of riding.

Pruitt doesn’t get as many mounts as he used to or win as often (he was leading jockey at various meets at now-defunct tracks in western U.S.) but he does knock off a stakes race or two that has him grinning broadly in the Winner’s Circle.

He and horse owner Robert Nokes, in fact, teamed up to win the Frank Arnason Sire Stakes the past two years. Last year, Pruitt had a total of eight wins from 97 starts at the Downs plus 11 seconds and 13 thirds.  

One of the more memorable highlights in his life, he says, was his third race ever at 19 at Del Mar race track in southern California when he came within a whisker of beating racing legend and hall of fame jockey Bill Shoemaker.  

“I came that close,” he still recalls, making a pinching motion with a thumb and finger.  

Not bad for a kid who started out as a reluctant 12-year-old who tearfully would fall off a horse, only to have his father —an exercise rider at a Mexican track near the U.S. border—“throw me back on.”

Watch out if you see Pruitt riding a horse that has a good chance of getting the lead. You’ll get a relentless ride — and maybe a big payoff to boot. Which could have you uttering: “Thanks, Gramps!”
Racing continues Friday, Saturday and then Wednesday, too, with parade to post at 7:15 p.m.