Black in the Saddle

Sunday would have been the perfect occasion for Tony Black to retire, and he knows it. The 67-year-old jockey won his 5,210th race and won it for one of his best friends in the business, trainer Richie Vega. His son wants him to quit. His mother wants him to quit. And his career win total ends in an even number, which he says is important to him because of what he admits is some strange obsession he has against odd numbers.

“Just an OCD thing, I guess,” Black said.

Black thought about retiring after winning Sunday's ninth race at Parx aboard Popizar (Tapizar)…for about three seconds.

He was told to retire by doctors after he broke his back in 2007. He announced his retirement after he won his 5,200th race in 2013 on a horse trained by another son. He did walk away for a bit and did not ride in 2016, but returned in July, 2017. He told everybody that time he would retire for real once he won one more race. He got his winner. He didn't retire.

“I guess it's hard to turn loose of something you love so much,” he said.

What now?

“I want to win a race when I'm 70,” he said.

Black is not the first jockey to continue to ride when they should be home collecting social security checks and watching Wheel of Fortune, but he seems to have actually figured out how to make this work.

“After his “retirement” in 2013 he continued to exercise horses most mornings at Parx and trainers, seeing that he still looked fine on a horse would ask him to accept rides in the afternoon. He couldn't say no in 2014 when trainer Michael Aro asked him to ride the filly Winning Image (Southern Image). Black rode her seven times, winning three stakes aboard her.

That made him realize that his age really wasn't an impediment, if he did things right. By working out regularly at home and by galloping horses, Black always stayed in shape.

“I think there's no one in all of America who is 67 years old who is as fit as he is,” Vega said. “This guy is amazing.”

He couldn't ride 300 horses a year, but why couldn't he ride 20? He also figured out how to get the best out of a horse without overtaxing himself.

“Of course it's harder to do things when you are 67, especially when you have broken just about every bone in your body,” he said. “But it's about learning how to really relax, and utilize yourself efficiently. You leave the gate, you're not pumping and scrubbing, you're letting the horse do the work in the early stages of the race and you're sitting there relaxed, breathing good, biding time until you have to get into that hard physical drive.”

Black rode his first race on June 16, 1970 at Liberty Bell. It didn't take long to show he had talent. His first mount won and paid $106.40. Over the ensuing years, he won numerous riding titles at Garden State and Parx, which was formerly known as Keystone and Philadelphia Park. He is the leading rider in the history of Parx.

His last full year of riding was in 2010 when he won 37 races. He was winless in 2015, didn't ride in 2016 and then rode one winner last year from 12 mounts. Black has also ridden in 12 races this year.

The one thing that does give him pause about continuing is the death of Jose Flores, who was killed in a spill at Parx in March.

“What has caused a lot of anxiety for everybody is the situation that occurred here earlier in the year where a good, older rider was killed, Jose Flores,” he said. “It puts a thought in your mind, that this could happen to anybody. It was a horrible experience that we all endured and will never get over it. You go past the part of the racetrack where he hit the ground and you think about him. There aren't many days that go by where you don't think about Jose.”

He doesn't know when his next mount will be. Oftentimes, he'll just tell Vega he'd like to ride a particular horse in his barn that he's been working. But there's little doubt that there will be another mount.

It is believed that the oldest jockey to ever win a race is Willie Clark, who had a winner at age 69 in 1991 at Charles Town. It's very possible that no one 70 or older has ever ridden a winner.

“That's my next goal,” Black said. “I'm going to win a race at 70. Absolutely. I'm 67, and it's going to be a long three years, but I'll still be getting on horses in the morning, which I really enjoy, and I'll stay fit. When I'm 70, I'm going to win a race. If you just looked at me and didn't know my age or look at my birth certificate, you'd say that guy looks really good on a horse, he gets them around there the way you're supposed to get them around there.”

If so, if he wins as a 70-year-old, will he retire then? With Black, there's never any way to tell.