Court, 63, adjourns riding career
Jon Court never won in the Triple Crown or Breeders’ Cup but earned respect in a sport that, more than ever, is one difficult room to work.
The 63-year-old jockey retired Sunday on closing day at Oaklawn, where he twice won the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby and, with 69 victories in 2000, once was champion rider. He’s the seventh-winningest jockey in Oaklawn history with 730 victories, including 38 stakes. He won riding titles at several other tracks, including Ellis Park in Kentucky and Birmingham Turf Club in Alabama.
A Florida native, Jon Kenton Court launched his professional career in 1980, his first professional victory coming that June 7 at Centennial in Colorado. Court scored his first career Oaklawn victory Feb. 16, 1981.
To give some idea, Larry Snyder (since deceased) then was king of the Oaklawn jockey colony and Pat Day had not claimed his first of record 12 local crowns in a Hall of Fame career. Court rode long enough to see Snyder become a track steward (though Snyder is not yet in the sport’s Hall of Fame) and Steve Asmussen dominate the trainer standings; meanwhile, Ricardo Santana Jr. and current two-time holder Cristian Torres combined for 10 riding titles.
Court collected 20 victories in the 2021-22 Oaklawn meeting, the first with December racing. At 61, he became the oldest jockey in American thoroughbred history to win a $1 million race aboard Last Samurai in the 2022 G2 Oaklawn Handicap. Court entered the weekend 2-for-84 this season.
“It’s just hard to come by the fast horses at this circuit,” Court said. “This is a tough circuit, one of the toughest, I consider, worldwide … Physically, no question, I can still do it. I’m in better shape than some of the years … I was riding with chronic injuries. Now, I feel good. I don’t want to push the envelope, like I have a tendency to do. I want to be able to walk away on my own terms.”
His signature victories came in back-to-back runnings of the Arkansas Derby, though he lost the ensuing Kentucky Derby mount on Line of David in 2010. Second to the John Sadler-trained winner was next-out Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver for trainer Todd Pletcher and jockey Calvin Borel, both Hall of Famers.
Whereas Line of David’s connections were from out of state, with the trainer based in California, Court’s 2011 second Arkansas Derby victory came for Arkansans up and down the line. His then-father-in-law, William “Jinks” Fires (from Rivervale and a large racing family, trained Archarcharch for Bob and Val Yagos of Jacksonville, he the owner of an auto-salvage yard in Jacksonville. Bob Yagos later related that he hung on to Archarcharch when a potential buyer’s deadline set by the owner elapsed.
“Winning for Mr. Yagos and my father-in-law (the jockey was married to the former Krystal Fires) makes it all that much sweeter. Kentucky Derby, here we come,” Court said after the race.
On the sport’s grandest stage, the colt pulled up lame and was vanned off after suffering a condylar fracture
in his left-front leg. Though weakened, he beat four of his 19 rivals in the mile-and-quarter race at Churchill Downs, won by Animal Kingdom. The horse then entered stud duty and Val Yagos, for one, objected when Archarcharch was moved to Korea in 2017, five years after he started at Spendthrift Farms in Kentucky. A threetime winner of $832,744 in seven starts, the horse died in 2020 at age 12.
Court’s peers bestowed upon him the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in 2007. The late Bobby Frankel, a HOF member, gave him the mount on 2014 G1 Citation Handicap winner Leroidesanimaux.
In recent years, Court has been prominent in the Permanently Disabled Jockeys’ Fund. Among the rider’s agents was Gene Short of Hot Springs.
“It’s been a good career,” Court said. “Racing’s been good to me. The horsemen have been great. The fans have been superior. I’ve got nothing but positive things going out.”