BALTIMORE, May 14 -- Timing is everything sometimes for a jockey, and Jerry Bailey's winning move Saturday aboard My Typhoon in the $75,000 Hilltop Stakes on Jerry Bailey Day at Pimlico was only a small part of the Hall of Fame rider's precision performance over the weekend.
It started Friday afternoon when Bailey, 47, rode the winners of the sixth and seventh races at Belmont Park before finishing last aboard Gigli in the eighth. At 6:40 p.m., he galloped the horse out, changed from silks to a suit in the jockey's room and rushed to a helicopter waiting at the track to whisk him to a private jet he had chartered at tiny Farmingdale Airport.
Upon landing at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Bailey climbed directly into a courtesy car waiting on the tarmac to take him to a Maryland Jockey Club dinner in his honor at a restaurant overlooking the Inner Harbor.
Two hours after riding the eighth race in New York, Bailey entered the Baltimore restaurant to thunderous applause, said a few words, ate dinner and signed his new book, "Against All Odds," which details his racing exploits and battle against alcoholism.
The following day, Bailey sat at a table in the grandstand and signed books throughout the afternoon. He hadn't planned to ride on the card, but Pimlico Chief Operating Officer Lou Raffetto, who had hustled trainer Bill Mott into entering My Typhoon in the Hilltop, knew a good thing when he saw one. The Mott-Bailey combination, after all, is legendary in racing.
"I originally wasn't supposed to ride here at all, just do this," Bailey said, signing books. "How crazy is that? I don't know how [Mott] came to enter him, but I didn't plan to ride. Then, when I got here, I was named on him."
My Typhoon, a 3-year-old filly who had made just two starts, was no ordinary horse; she is a half-sister to the great English champion Galileo.
The Pimlico bettors hammered her down to 3-5 odds, and Bailey placed her near the lead three wide on the first turn in the grass race before pulling clear of a game Flashy Three to win by two lengths.
My Typhoon covered the 1 1/16 -mile race in 1 minute 44.38 seconds and paid $3.40 for a win bet.
In the winner's circle, a restless Bailey was asked how he liked his whirlwind Baltimore weekend.
"It's been standard operating procedure the last month," he said, talking while walking. "I've got a shuttle to catch in Washington."
Racing Notes: After three years trying to bring Magic Weisner back from a near-fatal bout with West Nile virus, trainer Nancy Alberts announced the retirement of the 2002 Preakness Stakes runner-up.
"I decided a couple weeks ago when I worked him against this filly in the second race, the slowest filly in my barn, and she whipped him from the gate," Alberts said. "And he tried. He just didn't have the power in the hind end to push off."
Magic Weisner, a 6-year-old gelding, was the top colt in Maryland at age 3 but given little chance in the Preakness. At odds of 45-1 he came flying through the stretch to just miss beating War Emblem.
He contracted West Nile virus while training for the Pennsylvania Derby that year. Magic Weisner finished his career with seven victories in 15 starts, earning $888,830.
