Skip to main content

SI, May 22, 1989 Update

FOUR YEARS after she retired from horse racing, Julie Krone is getting back in the saddle. This Saturday at Santa Anita Park the 45-year-old jockey, who won 3,704 races and more than $90 million in purses during her 25-year career and is the only woman to win a Triple Crown race, will compete against seven other retired Hall of Famers: Angel Cordero Jr., 65; Jacinto Vasquez, 64; Sandy Hawley, 59; Pat Day, 55; Chris McCarron, 53; Jerry Bailey, 51; and Gary Stevens, 45. The seven-furlong Living Legends Race is part of the betting card, and the results will count toward the riders' career records.

Several of the ex-jocks are still near the sport—including Cordero, who retired in 1992 and is a jockey agent as well as an exercise rider for trainer Todd Pletcher. Krone, married with a three-year-old daughter, works out horses near her home in Southern California and is a devotee of the Parelli Natural Horsemanship method, a training technique emphasizing symbiotic relationships between human and equine. Jokes Krone of Saturday's race, "I don't think we'll do the horses any harm."

PHOTO

HEINZ KLUETMEIER (UPDATE)

OUT IN FRONT Krone is the last jockey to pose for SI's cover.