By Greg A. Szymanski
Part 1, Washed Up Jockey
People need second chances. Ronnie Roland had 50, all ending up like the washed up jockey he turned out to be.
If you met Ronnie in 1993, his face looking like a bent horseshoe, you wouldn’t know he taught and rode Secretariat as a yearling, the greatest racehorse America ever knew.
Secretariat ended up a king and Ronnie a pauper. Better yet, he’d tell you, a drunk pauper.
When I met Ronnie, he was exercising races horses at an off-track in Pomona near Santa Anita. He rode for $10 bucks a ride, starting when the sun broke and maybe riding 5 to 10 horses, depending how many beers and how loaded he was the night before.
Ronnie’s mornings always ended about 10 a.m. when the track closed down for afternoon racing, but for Ronnie it just started in the bar where he racked up a pool table and chugged his first beer, wiping away the dust from the morning’s rides.
TO BE CONTINUED
I met Ronnie at that bar that morning and it’s all about a dying man’s last wish.
Editor’s Note: Follow Greg on the Ronnie Roland Story here on this website. Greg has been a long time story teller, foreign correspondent and finally is settling down and old enough to write about them in a manner more than just a daily news story.
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