Patrick Alan Day is a retired American jockey. He is a four-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1999. Day won nine Triple Crown races and 12 Breeders' Cup races. He was once the leader for career Breeders' Cup wins though he was later surpassed as the events were expanded after he retired.
Robby J. Albarado is an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey. He began riding at the age of 10 and progressed to riding at bush tracks in his native Louisiana by the age of 12. After turning professional, he earned his first official win at Evangeline Downs in 1990. Since then, he has won more than 5,000 races, but his career has endured setbacks as a result of serious injuries. During 1998 and 1999, he suffered two skull fractures, one of which required doctors to replace a damaged portion of his skull with titanium mesh and polymer plate. Another serious accident in the fall of 2000 kept him out of racing for the better part of 2001.
The Illinois Derby is a race for Thoroughbred horses for three year olds run over a distance of one and one-eighth miles on the dirt at Hawthorne Race Course in Stickney/Cicero, Illinois, just west of Chicago in early April each year. The event was first run in 1923 at the Hawthorne Race Course. The purse is $250,000.
William I. "Bill" Mott is an American horse trainer, most notable for his work with Cigar. Mott earned the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer in 1995 and 1996. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1998 at the age of 45, becoming the youngest thoroughbred trainer ever inducted. Mott started training thoroughbreds at age 15 and won the South Dakota Futurity with Kosmic Tour before he was out of high school. He worked his way up the ranks by becoming first an exercise rider, then an assistant trainer for Hall of Fame Trainer Jack Van Berg. In 1976, Mott, trainer Frank Brothers, and a stable crew guided Van Berg's horses through the wins at Sportsman's, Hawthorne and Arlington Park race tracks in Chicago. They were so successful that Van Berg was named leading trainer at Arlington Park and leading trainer in the Nation with 496 wins in 1976, a record that stood until Steve Asmussen broke it in 2003 with 555 wins. Asmussen broke his own record in 2008 and 2009. Mott worked as an assistant trainer for Van Berg for three years before striking out on his own in 1978.
Donald L. Howard is a retired American jockey in Thoroughbred horse racing.
Shane Jude Sellers is an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey. At age eleven, he began working around horses and in 1983 rode his first winner at Evangeline Downs.
Randy Paul Romero was a Hall of Fame jockey in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing.
Mark Guidry is a former American jockey. He ranks 22nd among jockeys in career wins with 5,222 wins as of March 7, 2014, the date of his last ride. He subsequently announced his retirement from riding to become a jockey's agent. This was Guidry's second retirement. He initially retired in 2007 and did not ride again for 4 more years.
Willie Martinez is a jockey in North American Thoroughbred horse racing. Martinez is known in the business as "Chillie Willie," because of his "chill" demeanor in riding.
James Eugene Avant is an American jockey in Thoroughbred horse racing. Riding almost exclusively in Louisiana, during his career he has won more than 2,500 races. At Evangeline Downs, he shares the record with Curt Bourque of having ridden six winners on a single racecard, in 1988 & 1995.
Larry Lloyd Snyder was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey whose career spanned thirty-five years from 1960 to 1994. In the early 1960s he began competing at Oaklawn Park Race Track in Hot Springs, Arkansas where he would win eight riding titles. Beginning in 1964, he also rode at Arlington Park in Chicago where he won the riding title in 1974 and 1976, then at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, Louisiana he won six riding titles between 1981 and 1986.
Travis Stone is a public address announcer for thoroughbred horse racing at Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky, in which he has served since 2015. Originally from Schroon Lake, he graduated from the State University of New York at Oneonta in Oneonta, New York.
Shaun Xavier Bridgmohan is a jockey in American Thoroughbred horse racing.
Anthony S. "Tony" Skoronski was an American jockey in Thoroughbred horse racing. For more than a quarter of a century until retiring in 1969, he rode primarily at racetracks in the Chicago, Illinois area and at Oaklawn Park Race Track in Hot Springs, Arkansas. During his career he won the riding title eight times at Chicago's Sportsman's Park and two at Oaklawn Park.
Jamie Theriot is an American jockey. The son of Thoroughbred horse trainer Harold Theriot, he is a nephew of jockey Larry Melancon.
Evangeline Downs Racetrack & Casino is a racetrack in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, just east of Opelousas. It is owned and operated by Boyd Gaming. With a one-mile oval track, the facility provides close to 1,000 horse stalls for Thoroughbred flat racing and American Quarter Horse racing. The original track opened on April 28, 1966 at Carencro, Louisiana and remained there until 2005 when it moved to Opelousas, Louisiana.
Raymond Frederick Sibille is a retired American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey. In a career that spanned thirty-five years, he rode his first winner on June 29, 1969, at Evangeline Downs in Carencro, Louisiana. In 1973, he moved to compete at the Chicago-area tracks, where he won riding titles at Arlington Park, Hawthorne Race Course, and Sportsman's Park Racetrack. In 1981, he relocated to Southern California, where he won numerous top races. In 1988, trainer Thad Ackel hired him as the regular rider for Great Communicator, and Sibille met his greatest success that year, winning major races such as the Hollywood Turf Cup Stakes, San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Obispo, and San Marcos Handicaps before capping off the year with a win in the Breeders' Cup Turf.
Christopher Alan Emigh is a jockey in American Thoroughbred horse racing. He earned his first win as a professional at Evangeline Downs in 1989. The winner of more than 4,000 career races, he has won a riding title at Hawthorne Race Course seven times and at Arlington Park in 2006.
Howard Douglas Grant was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he began his jockey apprenticeship as a seventeen-year-old at Wheeling Downs, West Virginia and won his first race on October 9, 1956, at Cranwood Park Race Course in Cleveland, Ohio. During his twenty-four-year career, he competed primarily at Middle Atlantic racetracks and in 1959 rode four winners on a single racecard at Bowie Race Track, repeating that feat again in 1968 at the Atlantic City Race Course. He died August 1, 2018, aged 79.
Wayne M. Catalano is a former jockey and current trainer in American Thoroughbred horse racing who has won three Breeders' Cup World Championship races and trained two Eclipse Award Champions.
