Veteran jockey Melancon, 65, dies
Other Oaklawn jockeys in his time rode more winners, and as long as Snyder showed up for work, he was the second-most requested rider named Larry.
But no less than Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Lynn Whiting felt secure with Larry Melancon in the saddle. Three-time Derby winner Calvin Borel, though his greatest work came with Jerry Hissam, briefly used him as an agent.
Slowed by a stroke in 2017, Melancon died Thursday at his Louisville home, Churchill Downs reported. He was 65.
“The Churchill Downs family is deeply saddened to learn the news of former jockey Larry Melancon’s passing,” track president Mike Anderson said. “Larry was among the winningest jockeys in Churchill Downs history and was known for his skilled horsemanship. More importantly, Larry was a class-act who was always willing to lend a helping hand. He will be greatly missed.”
Trainer Al Stall Jr. remembers Melancon as one who after working a horse that went well would come back and, “Get the condition book out.”
“I didn’t need to hear about the last eighth, the gallop-out or anything,” Stall said. “It was just time to get the condition book out.”
Whiting won the 1992 Kentucky Derby with Lil E. Tee, owned by Arkansas horseman Cal Partee and ridden by Hall of Famer Pat Day, who won 12 straight Oaklawn titles. When he could not get Day for a certain race, Whiting would often turn to Melancon, who won the 1997 Rebel aboard the trainer’s Phantom on Tour.
Melancon rode his first winner in 1971 at defunct Jefferson Downs, near New Orleans, where the great John Henry began his career. He gravitated to Kentucky, riding four times in the Derby with a best finish of fourth in 1976 on Amano.
His other major clients including Niall O’Callaghan and Blackie Huffman, Melancon piloted such graded winners as Bachelor Beau, Guided Tour, Pineing Patty, Keats, Danville, Allamerican Bertie, Undermine, Roxelana, License Fee, Off Duty and Embossed.
“I knew Larry a long time as a rider and as an exercise rider/ assistant. He was obviously a friend,” Stall told Bloodhorse. com. “No one liked the way it ended after the stroke he had a few years ago. He was a super professional person on a horse’s back and off a horse’s back. He was just a quality kind of guy and a fun-loving guy.”
Melancon is survived by his wife, Denise; two children, Heather and Lance; and stepson Keelan Allen.
• Winning an Oaklawn race each of the last two days, Kelsi Harr rides one of her favorite horses, Bandit Point, in today’s
$150,000 Nodouble Breeders. Both of her winners this week along with Bandit Point are trained by fiancé Robert Cline, of Norman, son of the late Leon Cline, a longtime Arkansas horseman. Bandit Point, a late-running son of Indy Squall, represents Harr’s first career mount and first career winner (June 17, 2018 at Canterbury Park) and first career stakes mount (2019 Nodouble). Becoming a journeyman rider last fall, now with three victories at the meet, Harr seeks her first Oaklawn stakes victory aboard Bandit Point.
Tempt Fate, a two-time meet winner for Hot Springs owner Jerry Caroom is the 5-2 program favorite. Late-running K J’s Nobility, with Calvin Borel riding for wife and trainer Renay, is 7-2 second choice in the projected nine-horse field. Man in the Can, a two-time Oaklawn stakes winner last year for Ron Moquett, is 9-2, regaining his best form after sustaining injuries in the Grade 2 Blue Grass last summer at Keeneland.
Bandit Point, 6-1 on the board, has 13 board finishes at Oaklawn. “He’s my favorite,” Harr said. “He’s such a cool horse to ride, man. He’s a big stud and he’s huge. You walk in and he’s a big teddy bear. He’s just nice and kind and fun to ride. No bad vices at all. I’d put Lacey, my little girl, on him and feel 100 percent comfortable.”
Harr, 28, hails from Slovak, Ark., an unincorporated community on the Grand Prairie about 45 miles east of Little Rock.
“Don’t blink,” she said. “It’s a map dot. You’ll never know you went through it. Bunch of stop signs with shotgun holes in them. Lot of fields. We were definitely out in the middle of nowhere.
“There used to be a gas station, a little tiny gas station, but it’s not even there anymore. People and the Catholic church and that’s what you’ve got there.”
Oaklawn’s leading apprentice in 2020 with 11 victories, Harr credits trainer Al Cates, for whom she exercised horses before becoming a rider at 25, and jockey Richard Eramia as early influences. She attended the University of Arkansas with an eye toward becoming a nurse until, abruptly, she left school shortly before Christmas of her freshman year.
The road not taken?
“I think God knew better on the direction I was trying take in life because I don’t think I would have made too good of a nurse, if I’d ever even made it,” Harr said. “It didn’t come easy to me. About midnight one night, I just had a meltdown. I was having a hard time up there and wasn’t liking it. I’d been coming home as much as I could. That night, I told my friends I was rooming what that I don’t expect you to change your lives, but I’m going home. Loaded my stuff up that night and drove home.”
At Eramia’s urging (“Why aren’t you riding races? You ought to be riding races”) she became a jockey, then had a child. As she says, “That threw a wrench in the plans.”
“It was kind of a torn deal when I decided to ride because I already had her,” said Kelsi. “If I wouldn’t have had her before, it would have been a no-brainer. I would have been doing it way before I did. Then I had her and it changed some things a little bit.”
Despite losing her 5-pound apprentice weight allowance Aug. 27, Harr rode nine winners during the final five days of the Canterbury meet and had 24 winners overall to finish seventh in the standings at the Minnesota track. She had her first career riding triple Sept. 17, then cracked $1 million in purse earnings for the first time with an Oct. 31 Remington Park (Oklahoma City) victory aboard the Cline-trained Best Kept Secret.
On something of a hot streak entering the last weekend of March, she hopes it continues through a visit to the Larry Snyder Winner’s Circle aboard her favorite horse.
If she and Bandit Point arrive there, look for her to give everyone a wave.