Gary Stevens, from up close and personal

Journalists are not supposed to get too close to the people they cover. With Gary Stevens, though, a writer was bound to get his elbows scraped and knees scuffed, with a handful of heartbreaks along the way.

It should have been plain from the start, on that day in October of 1985 at Arcadia Methodist Hospital, when Stevens lay stretched out and broken up in a private room, with merciful painkillers allowing for a brief bedside visit.

He was 22. The day before he had been unseated and dragged when his horse bolted during a workout across the street at Santa Anita. Now he was facing the first serious injuries of his emerging career: a separated shoulder, broken arm, and torn knee ligaments. But, as Charlie Whittingham liked to say, the damage was a long way from his heart.

To recall the most important encounters with Stevens over the past 33 years would serve to ignore the smaller, more telling moments. The unveiling of the screaming eagle tattoo on his back. The ever-present pinch of snuff under his lower lip. The faint bruise on his jaw line where Pat Valenzuela once broke his hand.

You are reading the most surprised and honored guy in the business when Stevens took the podium to present me with an award from my turf writing colleagues in October of 1995, at the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan. Gary’s appearance was tantamount to Thomas Edison introducing Joe the Plumber. I do not remember what he said, but I’m certain all the subjects and verbs were in the right place.

Two years later, in August of 1997, I finally had a shot to return the favor, sort of. We were at the Haskell at Monmouth Park, and after the race both of us were bound for Albany, N.Y. Gary bummed a ride to Newark International (he was, after all, entering the Hall of Fame following day), and soon we were in the air.

Barely a half hour into the flight, the cabin overheated and the plane turned around. Repairs were undertaken, but Stevens and his Sancho Panza took one look at the unloaded luggage on the tarmac, then headed for the rental car counter. I volunteered to drive, so he promised to help keep me awake with stories of great adventure, after which he promptly fell asleep. He did not stir until we pulled into our Saratoga Springs hotel.

The next day, with the help of that car nap, Stevens made all the proscribed appearances and hit all the right notes during a day of Hall of Fame events. Again, I do not remember what he said, since I was the guy nodding off in the back row.

To that point, Stevens had won three Kentucky Derbies, five Santa Anita Derbies, a Preakness, a Belmont, and three Breeders’ Cup events in the days when there were only seven each year available to win. All that, plus more than 4,000 winners, and a highlight reel that already was bursting with unforgettable moments were more than enough for entry to the Hall. Among the many were: ◗ The 1988 Hollywood Derby, when Stevens and his gray gelding Silver Circus came from dead last in a field of 14 to bob and weave and finally find an escape route to get up in the final step to edge Raykour and Valenzuela by a head. “We got lucky,” Stevens said. Yeah, sure. But Silver Circus got Stevens.

◗ The 1990 Santa Anita Handicap, in which Stevens and Ruhlmann, at just shy of 23-1, set sail from post 10 to lead champions Criminal Type and Bayakoa on a futile chase for the entire mile and one-quarter. Five of the nine riders behind them were either in the Hall of Fame or headed that way, and if any of them had gotten close to Stevens they would have heard him saying, every furlong or so, “It’s not supposed to be this easy.”

◗ The 1991 Shoemaker Handicap at Hollywood Park, which took place just 20 days after Bill Shoemaker was rendered a quadriplegic in a onevehicle wreck. Emotions were, by necessity, very ragged. Stevens and Shoemaker were close, and they had been forging a solid relationship since Shoe retired from riding to become a trainer. The Juddmonte runner Exbourne gave Stevens a thrilling burst to win the one-mile turf event, then returned to the winner’s circle to be greeted by Shoemaker’s wife, Cindy. If there was a dry eye in the house, no one admitted it.

In his 21 years as a Hall of Famer, Stevens has only added to his highlight reel. Point Given, Rock Hard Ten, Silverbulletday, Mucho Macho Man, and Beholder followed over the ensuing years, punctuated by Gary’s retirements, injuries, and repairs.

In his 2002 autobiography, “The Perfect Ride,” written with Mervyn Kaufman and featuring a foreword by Shoemaker, Stevens wrote:

“For me, the concept of the perfect ride is something very personal. I wouldn’t say my life has been perfect, far from it, but the idea of the perfect ride – the hope of achieving it – has been an overriding lure, a dream that has motivated and sustained me from the first moment I mounted a horse.”

The ride is over now, at age 55 with an injury to his neck that could not dare sustain another. Stevens can claim he did not achieve perfection as a rider, but he came close enough for me.