MALES WE LOVE: HUMAN

LeRoy Jolley, Hall of Fame Trainer, by Marion Altieri
June 11 , 2007

How much do I love LeRoy Jolley?  I love to the lengths, and depths…no, wait.  That's Betty Browning.  Let me try that again.

I love LeRoy Jolley because:
a)  He's a genius, who knows and loves horses in a sublime, beautiful fashion; and
b)  He knows the value of women in this Sport.

He trained one of the greatest fillies of all time, Genuine Risk.  He took her to victory in the 1980 Kentucky Derby.   He knows that a filly like Rags to Riches can take on anyone she pleases—and take home the trophy at the end of the day.

I met Mr. Jolley for the first time last summer; I was introduced by a mutual friend, and knew during the exchange of eye contact that I could learn libraries-full of "stuff" from him.  His knowledge of the Sport is encyclopaedic.  No, I don't mean that he can necessarily spit out information like Who Won some obscure race in Oklahoma in 1928 (although he may very well have access to this kind of mundane trivia).  I mean that he intuits the horses, and just knows what's best for him.

(For the record, I'm writing this after seeing the film, "Ruffian" on TV.  The actor who portrayed Mr. Jolley was a very good lookalike, I'm guessing, for Mr. Jollley 32 years ago.  But the character in the film was not the LeRoy Jolley I've come to know this spring.  Mr. J. is quiet—friendly, once you get to know him—taciturn, perhaps a bit.  But braggadocio is not in him.  The character of LeRoy Jolley in the film—in Bill Nack's book?—is the wrong LeRoy.)

So I met Mr. J. last summer, and—he realized that I probably shared his opinion about marketing the Sport of Thoroughbred Racing.

He said to me,

"They don't know how to market this Sport!  Do you know who they're supposed to be marketing it to?"

"Why, yes…I do.  What do you think, Mr. Jolley?"

I believe that all four of our eyes were gleaming as we anticipated each other's answers.

"Let me ask you a question:  who loves a horse more than a 13-year-old girl??"

Precisely.  This man, who's had his trainer's license since 1958, who's trained two Kentucky Derby winners and was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1987, knows everything there is to know about this Sport—not just how much molasses to put into a horse's morning chow.

He went on to say that one $10,000 ad in Town & Country would garner more interest in this Sport than 100 similar ads in Sports Illustrated.

Men read SI for the swimsuits and basketball:  they don't give a damn about racing horses.  And they're not likely to go out and figure out how to buy into a racing partnership.

But women, he pointed out, see a picture of a horse and immediately want to know what's going on.

Amen to that, Mr. Jolley.

So there are a million reasons to love and respect LeRoy Jolley.  My personal reasons are that he's a horseman par excellence:  I'd entrust any horse I had to him, and know that that critter was getting the most loving care on the planet.  It would be an honor if LeRoy Jolley—Hall of Fame Trainer, Kentucky Derby winner, Cool Guy—thought I had a horse worthy of his tutelage.

Don't pay any attention to the character you may have seen on TV tonight:  that character is not LeRoy Jolley.  The Man, The Myth, The Legend, as they say.  In this case—it's all true.  We're blessed to have him training horses, and teaching us how it's done.

Someone with a pad of paper should write a book about him.  Maybe I will.