Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem for July 28, 2025

Jason discusses some jockey stories from the weekend about Tyler Conner and Perry Ouzts. 

A good Monday morning to you all. Such a fun weekend on the track and I could spend a lot of time writing about Sovereignty and his Jim Dandy (G2) win, or all the good racing from Del Mar, or a bunch of other stuff. Instead I want to talk about a couple of our great jockeys in the game, Tyler Conner and Perry Ouzts. 

Tyler suffered a serious injury in a spill here in Virginia this past Thursday and as of the last updates I’ve seen, is still making progress on his recovery in Richmond at the hospital. I’ve had the good fortune to interview Tyler a couple of times on my podcast, and his personality and spirit shine through when talking to him. He is a big favorite of many on social media in part because he’s so active in talking to the bettors about his mounts, being a jockey, and just racing life in general. He wears it all on his sleeve, and I think that garners a lot of respect from fans. 

It’s almost cliche at this point to type out the whole “these guys and gals risk their lives everyday,” because anyone reading this column is a real fan and knows that. But I think sometimes incidents like this push that beyond cliche and right into the sometimes scary realities of our game. And it all happens so fast. Everything is normal and going along and then boom. Sending all the good thoughts Tyler's way as I hope he’s able to make a full and speedy recovery.  

Every jockey puts their body and life at risk when they ride a horse race. Perry Ouzts has now ridden more of them than any rider in North American history, as he passed Russell Baze with his 53,579th mount at Belterra Park on Saturday. Records like this always are a little tough to describe because they aren’t as easy to quantify as most wins or most earnings. I think as a younger person I’d have described them less as an achievement and more as just longevity. But longevity is an achievement, so there goes that idea. 

Ouzts had ridden about 7,500 horse races before I was even born, and I’m by no means a spring chicken. Over 50 years he’s been riding horse races, and at age 71, he’s winning at 18% this year. He’s ridden through minor injuries, had to recover from major ones, and even won races the day he was in a motorcycle accident. He’s ridden on some big stages like Keeneland and Churchill Downs, but most of those mounts come from Beulah Park, River Downs (now Belterra), and places around there. It’s a remarkable career that deserves celebrating, but to what level? 

The debate about him being in horse racing’s Hall of Fame will always be about him not competing at the top-level tracks for a majority of his career. Perry has never won a graded stakes race. Never gone over $2 million in yearly mount earnings. 

My old co-worker at River Downs used to call him a “working man’s hero.” As a younger person I always kind of found that corny, and really did think that the people who should get the most celebrating were the ones at New York, Kentucky, California, etc. The big leagues. But as an older person now, I see how right John was. What Perry has done and continues to do is remarkable and worth celebrating. It is an achievement. It’s noble. It’s something for any rider starting out to aspire to. 

Will his career put him in racing’s Hall of Fame? I suppose we’ll see. Emotionally I want him in there, but I understand there’s a real argument on why he isn’t. But he will be remembered. And this new record will likely live on for a long time as tracks race less days than they did during much of Perry’s career. 

T.D. Houghton, Deshawn Parker, and John Velazquez are the three current riders that are the closest to Perry in total mounts. T.D. would need about 13,800 more mounts to catch Perry, and that’s if Perry stopped today. Deshawn and Johnny would both need 15,000 more. 

Jockeys to me will always be some of the most interesting, fascinating, controversial, and popular players in our game. As they should be. It takes a special kind of person to want to ride a horse going 38 miles per hour in a traffic jam of other horses. It takes a whole another type of person to do it 53,579 times. Amazing. 

Have a good week everyone!