If Woodbine jockey Sahin Civaci were a hockey player in the NHL, he’d be Connor McDavid – but a version of McDavid that spends a lot of time in the penalty box.
Perusing the 384 rulings and penalties handed down this past year by stewards at Canada’s five major Thoroughbred tracks (175 more than last year!), Civaci emerges as the feature attraction. Of course, that depends if the words “feature attraction” could be applied in the same breath to someone who was Woodbine’s top percentage rider and, on the other extreme, a rider who was suspended the most times for errant riding, was given the biggest fine for whipping too much and was also slapped with the largest fine for not trying hard enough.
His aggressive riding made him the darling of players who bet on him, but the bane of stewards whose job it is to regulate jockeys’ actions.