Phone Jazz: The Horse You Want To Party With
At Belmont Park’s fifth race on Saturday, a filly named Phone Jazz got tired of dancing for the Man so she bucked off her jockey and shimmied out of the starting gate free as the wind blows. The 8-1 pre-race long shot was never technically disqualified, but was considered a last place also-ran unable to complete the race under racing’s rules.
Some media outlets have offered up this not-as-rare-as-you’d-think incident as proof that jockeys only slow the horses down (of course a horse with 120 fewer pounds on her back ran faster). Others claim that it’s far more likely for de-jockeyed horses to bump into other horses, run off the track or overrun and injure itself after being spooked than to win and that Phone Jazz’s victory is newsworthy.
There’s no way Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird would have found the necessary holes on his own without jockey Calvin Borel, which is an example of why jockeys are necessary in the sport. As far as Jazz Phone’s romp? The average 3-year-old filly weighs 1,400 lbs. Losing less than 8 percent of her body weight would be the same as a 140-lbs. sprinter sloughing off 12 lbs. of dead weight. So yeah, it seems easier to run faster without the jockey.
Either way, Phone Jazz must have been disappointed coming around the final turn only to find the same flustered jockey waiting there despite having ditched him six furlongs ago.
The feelings of the ejected jockey, Jean-Luc Samyn, were the only thing injured from the throw.
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