Idaho jockey Gary Stevens retires from horse racing — for good, this time

Idaho jockey Gary Stevens told Daily Racing Form on Tuesday that he is retiring from horse racing because of a spinal injury — an injury that will make his third retirement stick.

Stevens, who has won each of the Triple Crown races three times, has a vertebrae “up against the spinal cord” near the base of his neck, he told Daily Racing Form. His doctor told him his career was over, he said.

“There won’t be any comeback from this one,” Stevens told DRF.

Stevens, 55, and his wife retweeted the Daily Racing Form story. Stevens couldn’t be reached immediately by the Idaho Statesman.

He was injured Saturday, with numbness in an arm, tingling in his hands and a feeling at the base of his skull “like a coffee pot got put on it,” he told DRF.

“I was getting close (to retiring) anyway,” he told DRF.

Stevens has won 5,187 races. He’s a Treasure Valley native who began his career racing at Les Bois Park. He has retired twice previously, from 1999 to 2000 and 2005 to 2013. He returned to win the 2013 Preakness Stakes as a 50-year-old.

He told the Idaho Statesman in May 2017 that his career was winding down.

“I won’t do it too much longer,” he said. “It’s not fair to my family, to my children, grandchildren to keep putting them through this.”

Stevens was inducted into thoroughbred racing’s Hall of Fame in 1997 and played a jockey in the hit movie “Seabiscuit.” He attended Capital High.

Stevens won two of his three Kentucky Derby titles with trainer D. Wayne Lukas.

“He was the turn-to guy and I knew I could depend on him,” Lukas told the Louisville Courier Journal on Tuesday. “The bigger the event, the better I liked him ... A lot of guys can ride, I think, but not all of them get the horse in the absolute position that if the horse is good enough, they can win. I’ve had riders that I thought were outstanding, but for one reason or another they’re inside when they should be outside. But Gary had an uncanny knack for putting the horse in a position where he could win.”

This story was originally published November 21, 2018 at 12:42 AM.