Joy Scott will be honored by the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters with its Bill Mooney Award for displaying courage in the face of tremendous adversity.
Scott launched her career as a jockey in 1981 and won 537 races riding in Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse, Arabian and Mixed Breed events. She suffered severe injuries to her right leg in a five-horse accident at Los Alamitos in 2001, but returned to the saddle to ride races 14 months later.
“I'm a winner again,” said Scott, who continues to battle back from injuries suffered in a morning-training accident in March 2013 at Santa Anita Park. “What an honor; I'm thrilled and overwhelmed.”
Scott joins three prior Mooney winners–the award's namesake who died after a long battle with cancer in 2017; retired jockey and owner Rene Douglas; and last year's winner, horsewoman Martine Bellocq.
“She is the walking (miraculously) embodiment of what the Mooney Award has come to represent,” Eclipse Award-winning Turf writer Jay Hovdey said in his endorsement of Scott this spring. “Her desire to remain a viable part of the sport kept her competing until it was no longer possible, and her nightmare struggles with recovery from serious injury is, sadly, more typical of others in her situation than we would like to believe. Yet she has soldiered on, raised a fine son as a single parent, and presents herself to the racing family with a positive outlook that is almost incomprehensible to those of us who have never faced such adversity.”
Scott will be honored at the NTWAB's 60th annual Awards Dinner at The Derby in Arcadia, California, Oct. 30. Also that night, the NTWAB will honor the late Rick Violette, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, Caton Bredar, and Tim Wilkin.
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