Legal Troubles and Return
After battling substance abuse issues and serving jail time in 2003, Gomez returned to riding in 2004. He was able to regain his previous success, and by the end of 2005, not only had he conquered his personal demons, he was one of the top go-to jockeys in the business. In 2005, he hooked up with Borrego, who gave him his first victory in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and his record third victory in the Pacific Classic Stakes, and on the two-year anniversary of his entering rehab, Gomez won two Breeders' Cup events, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile with Stevie Wonderboy and the Breeders' Cup Mile with Artie Schiller. In addition to those successes, Gomez won the riding title at Hollywood Park in their spring-summer meet.
Then in 2006, jockey John Velazquez was injured in a riding accident at Keeneland, which meant that trainer Todd Pletcher needed a new top rider on the East Coast, and that turned out to be Gomez. Gomez took full advantage of the opportunity, winning 16 stakes races aboard Pletcher-trained horses, including five Grade I races. Thanks in part to those victories, Gomez led the nation in earnings for a jockey with over $20.1 million. He was a finalist for the Eclipse Award for the Outstanding Jockey, but was defeated by Edgar Prado.
Read more about this topic: Garrett K. Gomez
Famous quotes containing the words legal, troubles and/or return:
“The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Macbeth. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor. Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)