Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day, who retired from racing earlier this year with more than 8,800 victories and more than $297 million in earnings, has been selected as the recipient of the 2005 Big Sport of Turfdom by the Turf Publicists of America, organization president John Lee announced today as part of the Mark Kaufman Workshop at the University of Arizona Racetrack Industry Program Symposium.
Day, 52, retired in early August after 32 years as a jockey. He now spends his time working with the Race Track Chaplaincy of America.
The Big Sport of Turfdom is presented annually to a person or group of people who enhance coverage of Thoroughbred racing through cooperation with the media and Thoroughbred racing publicists. Previous winners of the Big Sport of Turfdom, which has been presented every year since 1966, include: Joe Hirsch, Penny Chenery, Jack Klugman, Jim McKay, Laffit Pincay Jr., the only two-time winner, Tim Conway, Carl Nafzger, Chris McCarron, the Cigar team of Allen Paulson, Bill Mott and Jerry Bailey, Laura Hillenbrand, the husband-and-wife team of Ken and Sue McPeek, Jack Knowlton and his Sackatoga Stable, and John Servis.
Day will receive the award at the 40th annual Big Sport of Turfdom luncheon at Mastro's Steakhouse in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday, January 23, a few hours before the Eclipse Awards.
"We had outstanding candidates for the 2005 Big Sport of Turfdom Award, but this was Pat Day's year," said John Lee, TPA president. "He wrapped-up a stellar racing career this summer to devote himself more fully to another career central to Pat's life, his ministry. Considering the way he turned his life around to forge one of the greatest careers in racing, Pat Day is an inspiration. Win or lose, Pat Day was always there for the media, and the press found in Pat an articulate spokesman and one of the sport's most insightful commentators. Though small in stature, there's been nobody bigger in the game than Pat Day and no one more deserving of the Big Sport of Turfdom."
Day began riding in 1973, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1991 and retired as the all time leader in purse earnings with $297,912,019. He won 8,803 races, fourth on the all-time list, and Eclipse Awards as the nation's outstanding jockey in 1984, 1986, 1987 and 1991. He also won the Kentucky Derby with Lil E Tee in 1992, five Preakness Stakes, three Belmont Stakes and 12 Breeders' Cup races.
