LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Sports. Mike Smith needs sports.
Sports with balls. Sports with sticks. Sports with clubs. Sports. Mike Smith needs sports.
Sports with horses, too. Absolutely, sports with horses.
Everybody knows what Smith has achieved on the race track, including the Kentucky Derby. The man is a Hall of Fame rider. He won his first Derby with Giacomo in 2005. He won the Triple Crown aboard Justify two years ago.
But there's no Derby this Saturday. No sports for the last six weeks. You need sports. I need sports. Mike needs sports.
“I’m a huge sports guy,” Smith said by telephone from the Los Angeles area. “I sit and watch sports constantly. Whatever. It doesn’t matter what it is. I watch it. I don’t care if it’s ice dancing. I watch it.”
Smith has the mount on Honor A.P. The colt is not considered the best 3-year-old in the crop — yet. But Honor A.P. in the early team picture.
Late Saturday afternoon, when Smith was supposed to be directing Honor A.P. into the starting gate as one of the 20 contenders in Kentucky Derby 146, he will be home watching coverage of the Arkansas Derby as well as the virtual Derby that Churchill Downs has sponsored. He has a mount in that race aboard Justify.
Then Smith will return to Netflix.
Mike Tirico of NBC Sports called him several hours before I did and asked Smith the question I asked:
How do you feel about this Derby?
“I don’t know what to feel,” Smith said. “You’re not there. And it’s not going to run.”
Smith will turn 55 in August. His next Derby mount will be his 26th, which will tie Bill Shoemaker’s record. Mike Smith adores the Kentucky Derby.
“The reality is you’re just sitting around and not feeling anything,” he said. “When you really think about it, you get a little sad and then a little excited again, because I start thinking I could have been there. You kind of get a little bit of everything. Then you just get kind of depressed.”
Smith will tell you what he thought the first time the rumblings about the novel coronavirus stirred around the race track.
“A month and a half ago, I thought this will be over in a day or two,” Smith said. “This is a joke. It’s not real.
“The next thing you know it’s, 'Whoa, Whoa, WHOA!’ This is getting worse as each day goes on.”
Then the ruling came that horse racing in California could proceed — but without spectators.
Smith said he rode in front of an empty grandstand for three days at Santa Anita. Didn’t hate it. But didn’t love it.
“It was just real quiet,” he said. “It kind of felt like morning workouts other than there were more horses involved.
“No hecklers. Nobody cheering for you. No nothing. Once you’re in the gate, you don’t really think about all that part (of no crowd). You’re so concentrated and focused on riding.
“It’s the post parades that are eerie or coming back afterwards that are weird.”
Then the life-changing news arrived:
No racing in California
No Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May.
Try to stay home as much a possible. Buy your mask. Wear it any time you go outside.
Smith does that, except when he runs or rides his bicycle. He runs and rides his bicycle more than most people because one thing he can do to stay prepared to ride at an elite level is remain fit and at the proper weight.
“Running as far as I can run and riding a bike as far as I can ride a bike,” he said. “But it’s getting really boring.”
When Smith visits the grocery store or pharmacy, he wears his mask. He’s serious about the disease, respectful about the warnings.
In California, masks are mandatory to enter any business. Smith said he follows the rules.
“Most of the people wear it when they’re walking or jogging,” he said. “You walk by people, and they walk way away from you. It’s weird.”
One day the weirdness will end. The plan today is for the horse racing world to gather at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in September and celebrate the Derby in a way it has never been celebrated.
“Most of the time when I’ve taken this much time off it’s only because I’ve gotten hurt,” Smith said. “I didn’t have a choice. I’m about as fit and healthy as I can be and itching to go back, as we all probably are.
“I want to get back to work. Plus, I miss riding. I truly miss it, and I miss being in Louisville.”
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