Thoroughbred jockeys are renowned for their toughness, and Woodbine rider Steve Bahen was no exception.
Bahen, who retired from riding this week after more than three decades in the saddle, feels fortunate to only have suffered two major injuries during his career. He broke his foot one night racing at the old Greenwood track in Toronto – and rode in a double card the next day before finally going to the hospital and having a cast put on. And then, on Oct. 31, 1996 at Woodbine, a bay gelding Bahen was riding named Sreko went through the inside rail and fell on top of him.
“I broke the T2, T3 in my neck, I broke my sternum, my shoulder blade and collapsed my right lung,” Bahen told the Toronto Sun.
Before having his injured neck diagnosed, Bahen went golfing with his agent Al Raymond. A couple of times.
“That’s true,” recalled Raymond. “And his foot wedge was perfect.”
Bahen said his wife finally urged him to have the “sore” neck looked at, which he did, and renowned sports physician Dr. Anthony Galea sent him for a scan which revealed various breaks.
“Jocks ride hurt,” said Bahen, when asked about the accident. “We don’t ride, we don’t get paid.”
After 37 years of racing, Bahen has decided that it’s time to hang up his tack, though he’ll continue to work at the backstretch with his longtime partner, trainer Rachel Halden. At 57, the personable jock bows out after recording 1,574 victories, with $58,255,989 in earnings and wins in many of Canada’s biggest races, including the Woodbine Oaks (three times) and two of the three jewels of the Canadian Triple Crown – the Breeders’ Stakes and Canada’s most important race, the Queen’s Plate (now the King’s Plate with the death of Queen Elizabeth II last year).
His victory on TJ’s Lucky Moon in the 2002 Queen’s Plate is the stuff of legends. The three-year-old gelding had just broken his maiden the race before and went off in the Plate at 82-1 odds. Riding out of the nine hole, Bahen gave the Vito Armata-trained gelding a near-perfect trip, grabbing the rail early in the 1 1/4 mile classic and holding off a charging Anglian Prince in the stretch, to win by 3/4ths of a length, despite the horse stumbling out of the gate. TJ’s Lucky Moon paid an eye-opening $166.
“For a Canadian rider, that’s our Stanley Cup. That’s our Kentucky Derby,” said Bahen, who jokes that he barely remembers his biggest wins.
Born in Montreal and raised close to Woodbine in Malton, Bahen started racing at the Etobicoke track in 1986 and recorded his first win on July 9 of that year aboard Michellerin for Stoney Brook Stables and trainer Mike Wright.
“Steve always had a reputation as being a very, very hard worker. I always respected him for how hard he works,” said former Queen’s Plate-winning jockey Robert Landry, now GM at Chiefswood Stables. “It’s the way of the world. Some things come easy to people and some things don’t and he had to earn his way, and people had a lot more respect for him.
“I was dedicated,” said Bahen. “I was never a top leading rider. I flew in the top 12 for many years. And that was good enough for me. But I had to work hard at it. I didn’t take days off. I worked horses, I galloped horses for people.
“There were no gimmes for Steve,” added Raymond, who remembers Bahen showing up first thing in the morning at the Woodbine backstretch the day after winning on TJ’s Lucky Moon, despite the Queen’s Plate party breaking up around 3 a.m. “He had to work hard for everything he did.”
Bahen’s hard work paid off when he was named the 2012 recipient of the Avelino Gomez Memorial Award for his dedication to the sport. One of the best horses he ever road was the talented mare Nipissing, for Halden, winning the 2013 Woodbine Oaks, the premier race in Canada for fillies.
“Rachel and I had just started dating the year before and Nipissing came along and, as a two-year-old, I galloped her every day, and I loved her,” said Bahen. “And she ended up going 4-for-4 as a two-year-old, winning two stakes. And the next year, we won the Oaks.”
Tragically, Nipissing broke down in the 2013 Wonder Where Stakes and had to be euthanized.
“She ended up breaking her back leg,” said Bahen, who still feels the loss today. “She would have been a superstar. It was devastating, horrible.”
Bahen raced right until the end of the 2022 Woodbine season and his last victory came on Dec. 11 aboard Gaston (named after the former Blue Jays manager ) for trainer Kevin Attard, finishing in a dead-heat with the Patrick Husbands-ridden Bringer of Rain (named after a former Blue Jays third baseman) in an optional claiming race with a purse of $111,440.
“Bottom line is, business was slowing down too much. If I would have made $1 million in purses, I would have gone another year,” said Bahen, when asked about deciding to retire this week. “I rode under 200 horses last year and the time waiting between races – some weeks I’d ride three horses – and it’s not worth controlling my weight for that, and I was dedicated for 37 years of watching my weight. That was the bottom line. I love riding. I gallop horses every morning, five six seven a day for Rachel. I’ll still be at Woodbine every day.
“I’m proud of what Stevie made of his life,” said Landry. “He worked hard for it and deserved everything he got.”
SBuffery@postmedia.com
Twitter @Beezersun
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