Career
Patrick Alan "Pat" Day (born October 13, 1953 in Brush, Colorado) is an American jockey. Day also received in 1985, given annually to a North American jockey who demonstrates the highest standards of professional and personal conduct. In 1995, he was voted the Mike Venezia Memorial Award for "extraordinary sportsmanship and citizenship".
Pat Day was known for being a patient rider with gentle hands, and for not using a horse more than he had to
Because Day often arrived at the wire too late, he was given unflattering nicknames—Pat (I"ll Wait All) Day, and Patient Pat. He often looked too passive, and his deliberate riding style of waiting and waiting, then making a move, and waiting again, frustrated trainer Doctorate. Wayne Lukas, and many fans and bettors.
He also drew criticism by riding tentatively, and stopping and starting with many of his mounts. Day has ridden winners of United States. Triple Crown races nine times.
Day stated, "Easy Goer was the best horse I ever rode."In 1999 he rode Menifee, who placed directly behind Charismatic in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes.
Prior to the Belmont Stakes, where Menifee failed to place in the top three and Charismatic broke down in the final furlong, their rivalry was compared to that of Affirmed and Alydar in 1978. He is the only jockey to have ridden at least one mount in each of the first 20 Breeders" Cups, and ranks second all-time in Breeders" Cup winners, with 12. Day is also the all-time leading rider at Churchill Downs and Keeneland Race Course, the two largest tracks in his adopted home state of Kentucky.
At the Downs, Day was often so dominant that veteran horseplayers would complain — bettors would often wager so much money on horses with Day in the saddle that the payoff odds would decline.
Early in his career, he had serious substance abuse problems with both drugs and alcohol, but became a born-again Christian in the early 1980s. He has been involved with the Race Track Chaplaincy of America since his conversion, and is currently the racing industry"s representative on the board of that organization.
He said he would retire and commit the rest of his life purely to spreading the Gospel. Day and his family reside in the Lake Forest subdivision in Louisville, Kentucky.
Lil East. Tee was an American-bred Thoroughbred racehorse who in 1992 scored one of the biggest upsets in the history of the Kentucky Derby.
His jockey was Pat Day. This was Pat Day"s first and only Kentucky Derby victory.
