A member of the National Museum Horse Racing Hall of Fame and Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, a George Woolf Award recipient, Vancouver-born RUSSELL BAZE, the all-time leading rider by wins, now has an Avelino Gomez Award to add to his collection.
Baze, who won his first race on October 28, 1974, at Yakima Meadows aboard a horse trained by his father, Joe, a former jockey, will not be in attendance for the ceremony on July 23, Woodbine Oaks day.
“When I started out, I was just a kid who enjoyed riding, and I wasn’t very good at it either, but as I went along and became a more competent rider, all the accolades that have come my way were something I never even dreamed of.
“All I wanted to do was go out there and win as many races as I could and do the best job I could, not only for the owners and trainers, but also the fans.”
Baze led all North American riders in 13 separate years.
His run of striking success at Golden Gate Fields continued into the late 2000s. On February 1, 2008, Baze became the first North American rider to win 10,000 career races. The decorated horseman would go on to record 54 riding titles at Golden Gate and 5,765 total victories at the track.
Baze’s brilliance at Golden Gate was not to be outdone by his unrivaled stretch of dominance at Bay Meadows in San Mateo, California. There, he won 40 riding titles, including every meet from 1981 until the track closed in 2008.
His resumé also features a strong collection of Grade 1 victories, such as the Ancient Title, King’s Bishop, Santa Monica Handicap, and Oak Tree Invitational. Overall, he earned 97 graded stakes triumphs.
Led by Eclipse Award winners Lost in the Fog and Shared Belief, Baze teamed up with several stars over the course of his storied career. Other notable names included Hawkster, Summer Hill, Smiling Tiger, Lexicon, Cause to Believe, Tricky Trevor, Bold Chieftain, Chocolate Candy, Lite Light, and Both Ends Burning.
No stranger to the history books, Baze surpassed Hall of Fame rider, Laffit Pincay Jr., to become the winningest jockey in the history of North American racing when he rode his 9,531st winner, Butterfly Belle, at Bay Meadows on December 1, 2006.
In 1994, he was presented with a Special Eclipse Award for having won 400 or more races in four consecutive years. Altogether, Baze won 400 or more races 13 different times, headlined by a career-high of 448 in 1995.
The treasured Gomez Award is given to the person – Canadian-born, Canadian-raised or regular rider in the country for more than five years – who has made significant contributions to Thoroughbred racing.
It is named in memory of one of the sport’s most successful and revered performers. The Cuban-born Gomez died of complications after a three-horse accident in the 1980 Canadian Oaks.
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