31 Facts About Pat Day

Pat Day is a four-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.

Pat Day was once the leader for career Breeders' Cup wins though he was later surpassed as the events were expanded after he retired.

Pat Day retired in 2005 with 8,803 wins and as the all-time leading jockey in money earned.

Pat Day was a dominant rider on the Kentucky riding circuit and holds all of the career riding records at Churchill Downs and Keeneland.

Pat Day was known for being a patient rider with gentle hands and for not using a horse more than he had to, but was sometimes criticized for waiting too long to make his move.

Pat Day was strong at taking horses to the lead as he did on Louis Quatorze in his 1996 Preakness victory and on Commendable in his 2000 Belmont Stakes win.

Pat Day said that Easy Goer was the best horse he ever rode.

Pat Day learned to ride from his father, who owned a car repair shop in the ranching community of Brush, Colorado.

Pat Day rode his first winner, Forblunged, on July 29,1973.

Pat Day became the leading jockey at Turf Paradise before relocating to Chicago, where he became the leading jockey at Hawthorne and Sportsman's Park.

Pat Day recorded his first major victory that year in the Jockey Club Gold Cup aboard longshot Great Contractor.

Pat Day was the leading jockey by number of wins in 1982,1983,1984,1986,1990,1991.

The first win in 1982 came only after Pat Day chartered a plane on December 31 to Delta Downs, where he won two races on the evening card to surpass Angel Cordero Jr.

Pat Day rode winners of American Triple Crown races nine times, ranking him behind Eddie Arcaro's 17 wins in Triple Crown races as well as Bill Shoemaker's 11, while tied with Gary Stevens, Bill Hartack and Earl Sande's 9 each.

However, Pat Day had a comparatively poor Kentucky Derby record with only one win in twenty two tries.

Pat Day had been the regular rider of 1990 Derby winner Unbridled but chose to ride Summer Squall in that race instead.

Pat Day rated behind Arazi in tenth place, hoping to follow his move and take second place.

In 1991, Pat Day won the Canadian Triple Crown and the Breeders' Cup Distaff aboard the future Hall of Fame filly Dance Smartly.

Pat Day is the only jockey to have ridden at least one mount in each of the first 20 Breeders' Cups, and at one point was the all-time leader in Breeders' Cup winners, with 12.

Pat Day made his base in Kentucky, where he rode at Churchill Downs and Keeneland in the spring and fall.

Pat Day won his first earnings title in 1999, followed by another win in 2000 in a close battle with Jerry Bailey.

Pat Day finished 2000 with his mounts earning $17,479,838 in purses.

Pat Day recorded nine wins in the American Triple Crown plus ten second-place finishes and four thirds.

Pat Day is the all-time leading rider at Churchill Downs and Keeneland Race Course, the two largest tracks in his adopted home state of Kentucky.

Pat Day earned a record twelve jockey titles at Oaklawn Park.

On June 20,1984, Pat Day set a Churchill Downs record for the most wins on a single card when he won seven of eight races in which he rode.

Pat Day earned the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey in 1984,1986,1987 and 1991.

Pat Day received the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in 1985, given annually to a North American jockey who demonstrates the highest standards of professional and personal conduct.

Pat Day received the Big Sport of Turfdom Award for 2005 in acknowledgement of the way he worked with the media to enhance coverage of the sport.

Pat Day has been involved with the Race Track Chaplaincy of America since his conversion, and has served the racing industry's representative on the board of that organization.

Pat Day subsequently devoted himself to the Kentucky Race Track Chaplaincy and helped to establish a chapel at Churchill Downs that services backstretch workers.