JAY HOVDEY DRF STEVENS

 Different feel for opening day sans Stevens

Gary Stevens rode in his first Santa Anita opening-day program 34 years ago.
Santa Anita Park was around for 50 years before Gary Stevens rode his first opening-day program on Dec. 26, 1984. With any luck, the grand track with the Ansel Adams backdrop will be around for at least a few more years now that Stevens has retired.

The kid from Caldwell, Idaho, won a race on that first opener, Dec. 26, 1984, then added 79 more during the meet to finish third in the standings behind Chris McCarron and Laffit Pincay. The following season, Stevens rode in his first opening-day Malibu Stakes – he was sixth aboard First Norman – after which he won 103 races to win his first Santa Anita title.

“They’re still big, but back then, they were huge,” Stevens said this week. “And always exciting. Did I really win a race that first year? I remember a lot of races, but that’s not one of them. Still, I must have been pretty pleased.”

For the record, Stevens, then 21, won a claiming race on his first opening day aboard the 3-year-old Northwest Emperor before a Wednesday crowd of 49,976.

Opening day that year also marked the first time the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes topped the program, won in typical crowd-pleasing style by future Hall of Famer Precisionist. Stevens watched from the room, then he hit the board in a couple of Malibus before winning his first on Dec. 26, 1992, aboard Star of the Crop for Leonard Lavin and Willard Proctor. It was the highlight of a five-winner afternoon that led to his fourth Santa Anita championship in a span of eight years. That he remembers.

“I’ve still got the picture of the five winners hanging in my garage,” Stevens said.

Opening days for Stevens have mixed the bitter with the sweet. On Dec. 26, 1999, after riding Desert Hero to a sixth-place finish in the Malibu, he dropped a bomb on trainer Richard Mandella.

“We were walking back through the tunnel, and I said, ‘That’s it, Dick. My knees are killing me,’ ” Stevens recalled. “I don’t know if he felt like crying as bad as I did, but I’ll never forget the look of shock on his face.”

Stevens was back in the saddle 10 months later, in plenty of time for the Dec. 26, 2000, Santa Anita opener, then went on to tear through the 2001 season aboard Horse of the Year Point Given. Three years later, he won his second Malibu aboard Rock Hard Ten for Mandella.

“He was like the black version of Point Given,” Stevens said of Rock Hard Ten, who later added the Santa Anita Handicap. “You could blindfold me and put me on either one, and I couldn’t have told the difference.”

More recently, as Stevens defied both the aging process and the cumulative effects of a lifetime of riding injuries, he kept the flame alive on opening day.

On Dec. 26, 2013, he celebrated his return season after six years on the ground by winning the opening-day La Brea Stakes aboard Heir Kitty. To kick off the 2015-16 meet, Stevens enjoyed his one-shot deal aboard sprint champ Runhappy to win his third Malibu. One year ago, in the opening-day San Antonio, he put Great Expectations on the lead and never looked back.

After sustaining a serious neck injury during the fall Del Mar meet, Stevens, now 55, called it a career. He is scheduled for surgery on Thursday to relieve the threatening pressure of a vertebra on his spinal column.

“I’ve had a lot of surgeries, so it’s usually kind of ho-hum,” Stevens said. “But I’m not as mentally prepared for this as I have been in the past. I’ve never had anyone go in this close to my spinal cord before.”

Once recovered, Stevens hopes to take advantage of one of the several irons he’s put in the fire. One of them, predictably, is a role in the presentation of racing on television. In that spirit, he was given a chance to practice his patter in an analysis of the Santa Anita jockeys’ room he is leaving behind, beginning with the return of Joel Rosario.

“This is a game-changer,” Stevens said. “He has no weaknesses. We need Joel out here right now to take a couple of the other guys to the next level.”

Rosario was a Southern California mainstay until he headed to New York in 2012.

“It will be like the guys I got to ride with,” Stevens said. “We enjoyed the competition, and we made each other better.”

The guys Stevens rode with when he was in his 20s included not only Pincay and McCarron but also Bill Shoemaker, Fernando Toro, Eddie Delahoussaye, Sandy Hawley, and Pat Valenzuela. Later on, Kent Desormeaux, Alex Solis, and Corey Nakatani were added to the heady mix.

“I think that’s what Joel will bring to young riders like Flavien and Drayden,” Stevens said, referring to young guns Prat and Van Dyke. “It’s already fun to watch their battles. They get along, and they respect each other. It reminds me of pulling up after a race and McCarron telling me, “Great job,’ when I made a move that made a difference, and vice versa.”

Established veterans Rafael Bejarano and Tyler Baze, both 36, “are always there for you,” Stevens noted, but he expects Joe Talamo, 28, to rise to new levels.

“Joe’s getting an opportunity now with Bob Baffert that has made him a better rider already,” Stevens said. “I felt like he was kind of staying the same. Sometimes it takes riding really good horses to get over that hump.”

At the other end of the actuarial table, Mike Smith and Martin Pedroza, both admitting to 53, take over the room’s honorary rocking chair from Stevens.

“Mike is Mike,” Stevens said. “He’s the smartest rider in the room, maybe one of the smartest of all time.

“As for Martin, he’s still fun to watch,” Stevens added. “When he’s on a live one, you very rarely see him get passed. You can tell from the three-eighths pole out, his horse is going to sleep well that night.”

Santa Anita officials were hoping to stage a Stevens farewell party on opening day, but Gary demurred. There will be a ceremony later in the meet.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, with surgery the following day,” Stevens said. “I know myself too well. I’m afraid I’d have way too good of a time. So, I’ll be home, watching on TV.”