It’s not often I meet a guy who is shorter than me. But, a couple years ago I was in a pub in Delaware when I met an entire bar full of them — jockeys who were in town to race at Dover Downs. I wasn’t aware it was jockey night.

They were nice and one bought me and my friends a round of drinks. I don’t remember his name, but he wasn’t originally from the U.S. He spoke with an accent as he talked about what it was like to be a jockey. Lonely it seemed. And, a little sad. He had kids and spent a lot of time away from his family trying to suport them through races. He was also proud that he made pretty decent money when he and his horse performed well — not such much when he underperformed.

For just meeting the guy, you could tell life was pressure driven. It sounded like jockeys will do pretty much anything to win - things most of us wouldn’t imagine. He didn’t come out and say he had an eating disorder, but he did talk about how careful jockeys are about what they eat and how important it was to stay a certain weight. It sounded very similar to some female models who try to keep their bodies unnaturally thin.

This whole PETA asking for Eight Belles’ jockey to be suspended thing is what sparked my memory of the jockey meeting.

I can’t imagine anyone, particularly the person who is relying most on the horse, to be negligent or push a horse beyond its physical limits on purpose. I also can’t imagine someone kidnapping a child or or murdering someone, but it happens. I’m not saying Gabriel Saez, the jockey riding Belles at the time, did anything wrong — but it does make me think about the ethical aspects of horse racing — not just in relation to the horses, but the jockeys as well.

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