Mike Smith was three months shy of his 18th birthday when he rode the escalator up to the jockeys' room at Churchill Downs to prepare for his first mount in the Kentucky Derby (G1).
The date was May 5, 1984. Celebrities in the Derby crowd included Gene Hackman, Gerald Ford, Walter Cronkite, Sally Ride, Johnny Bench, Robert Strauss, and Olivia Newton-John.
Young Smith confronted an even more daunting array of glitterati in the jocks' room that day. Among those riding in the 110th Derby were Laffit Pincay Jr., Bill Shoemaker, Pat Day, Chris McCarron, Eddie Maple, Eddie Delahoussaye, Sandy Hawley, Don Brumfield, and Craig Perret. All of them were either in the Hall of Fame or well on their way.
Smith had just concluded a successful season at Oaklawn Park, where he won 46 races during a meet that lasted just 10 weeks. His next stop was Ak-Sar-Ben in Omaha, Neb., which was only five days into its season before Smith had to beg off to ride Pine Circle for Shug McGaughey and Loblolly Stable in the Derby.
"It was the first time I ever flew anywhere to ride a race," Smith said earlier this week from home in Sierra Madre, Calif., not far from Santa Anita Park. "I'd won the Hawthorne Juvenile with Pine Circle at the end of '83. He came flying from midpack that day and just parked."
Pat Day rode Pine Circle to a second-place finish in the 1984 Arkansas Derby (G1) to earn the colt a trip to Louisville, Ky. But Day chose to ride Vanlandingham, another Loblolly colt, in the big dance.
"Shug called my agent Paul Young to see if I wanted to come down and ride Pine Circle in the Derby," Smith said. "My reaction was, 'You've got to be kidding me, man!'"
Ah, sweet innocent youth. Smith was not long from the New Mexico circuit, where he began his career at Santa Fe Downs in May 1982 at age 15—yes, 15—thanks to a slightly doctored birth certificate by his racetracker uncle that changed the year of his birth from 1966 to 1965.
"All you've got to do is erase a little bit off the back end of the six to make it look like a five," Smith said with a grin. "Heck, it was only three months till I turned 16, so it was no big deal."
Smith rode six winners before turning 16 on Aug. 10, 1982. Since then, he has added 5,796 more, plus two Eclipse Awards, 27 Breeders' Cup victories, and a place of his own in the Hall of Fame. He copped to the minor document alteration last summer when all the media guides were poised to celebrate what almost everyone thought would be his milestone 60th birthday. Hold the candles.
On the '84 Derby program, when Pine Circle finished a respectable sixth behind victorious Swale, he was Smith's only mount. If that sounds familiar, that is exactly what his afternoon looks like May 2, when his only assignment is in the Derby aboard So Happy, winner of the Santa Anita Derby (G1). The son of 2015 champion male sprinter Runhappy is trained by Mark Glatt and races for owners Rob Norman of Norman Stables and Hans and Ana Maron, who race as Saints or Sinners.
Smith has been working So Happy since last autumn and has ridden the colt in all four of his races.
"He keeps surprising me," Smith said. "He's a smarter horse than even I give him credit for. He can be very ordinary in the morning, so much so you really wonder if he could be that good. He just does what's needed, and if you work him in company and give the other horse too much of a head start, he'll just go, 'Nah, catching him is too much to do.'
"But then in the afternoon he's a different horse," Smith went on. "He comes to life. He's the kind of horse, if they run fast, he'll run a little faster. You won't see him ever winning off by many, but he won't be stopping at the end of his race."
So Happy sustained a minor foot injury earlier this year and missed vital training sessions before his first two-turn try in the San Felipe Stakes (G2) March 7. He finished third that day, beaten 2 1/4 lengths in his only loss, after pressing the pace of Brant, the odds-on favorite.
"After that, I know people were thinking he couldn't get the distance, being by Runhappy," Smith said. "But he just got tired. When I pulled him up he was blowing, but then he recovered right away. My first thought was, 'Man, he could really move up off this race.' And he did, in the Santa Anita Derby. I think he'll even move forward off that race, and he'll need to. If he does, I think he's got a really good shot."
For those who keep track of such things, So Happy would mark Smith's 29th Kentucky Derby mount, a record that could have been even more impressive had it not been for the late scratches of Hoppertunity in 2014, Omaha Beach in 2019, and Rodriguez last year.
That nagging trend may have already been neutralized this time around. Smith was booked to ride Bottle of Rouge, winner of the Virginia Oaks, in the Kentucky Oaks (G1) May 1. But the filly was scratched, leaving him only an allowance race to ride on the card.
At 59, Smith would be the oldest jockey ever to win the Derby. Bill Shoemaker was 54 and nine months when he won the 1986 Derby aboard Ferdinand. John Velazquez, who rides morning-line second choice Further Ado Saturday, is 54 1/2, so he would fall just short of the mark. However, Velazquez does have a shot to win his fourth Derby, which would tie Shoemaker behind the five wins of Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack.
Seven of the 20 jockeys in this year's field are Derby rookies, including veterans Juan Hernandez, Edwin Maldonado, and Hector Berrios, along with 20-year-old Chris Elliott, the son of Derby-winning Stewart Elliott. Does Smith recall any first Derby jitters?
"When you're in the Derby, everybody's got some kind of nerves, otherwise something's wrong with you," Smith said. "It comes down to handling the pressure.
"I'm sure the first-timers and the younger jocks could be a little more nervous that they need to be," he said. "You've just got to do it to learn it, like when your parents tell you don't touch something because it's hot. Sometimes you've got to touch it to find out for yourself.
"But even the young ones are pros," Smith said. "They might spend a little more time in the bathroom, thinking they've got to pee and nothing comes out. But they'll be OK."
Smith said he would be arriving in the room sometime in the early afternoon Saturday. Post time for the Derby is 6:57 p.m. ET, which will leave him with at least five hours to kill.
"I'd like to have ridden another race on the card, but I don't have to," he said. "I'll have already done all the homework. I'll watch the races, visit a little bit, and sign all the stuff I'm supposed to sign. About an hour and a half before the race I'll do a light workout, just something to get the lactic acid out of my body.
"After that, man, I'll be ready to roll," Smith added. "I'll be ready to run through a wall."
And take So Happy with him.
