Athletic greatness comes in all shapes and all sizes.

It doesn't come naturally, but is achieved from hard work, diligence and adversity along the journey.

There's opportunity and there's always struggle.

There is triumph and there is defeat, and there is always a story behind the glory.

It was a long way from sunset.

Louisiana, two years of winning titles at the Tracks of Chicago.

But that's where the love of writing began for erasable.

I can always remember Ray wanting to write, ever since he was a little bitty boy.

They tell him, Nick, say, you better come to school because you ain't going to get nowhere in life riding a horse.

He was going to be a jockey and there was nothing to stop him.

Race a bill 36,000 times.

You got on top of the Thoroughbred and raced in your career as one of the best ever in the saddle, and won more than 4000 times.

I mean, these are numbers which just blow my mind when you look back on it.

What comes to mind?

Well, I enjoyed it so much.

That was the the best thing about it.

You know, I've loved horse racing ever since I was five years old.

And then you got to run match races and then it just went on from that.

And then events and downs was the big deal by if you could only be 16 to get your license to ride at events and downs.

When I started we had about eight, eight buck riders.

That's, that's apprentices end up in the jockeys room.

And little by little they'd we'd out, you know that go by to get too big or go to do other things and I guess the two that went on the most is that of Elihu Sandman waking up before the sun came up.

Yeah.

To work horses at Evangeline Downs before going to class at Sunset High School.

I mean, that's dedication.

Yes.

Well, I went to that school in sunset, you know, and right after school would be over, I'd get in the car and go back to the racetrack, you know, because I had to day.

Yet that was only like six miles away from where we lived.

So it wasn't that far but I just, I loved it.

I just wanted to, I never wanted to go home.

You.

Back in the day everybody on the racetrack knew us.

You know we were the whole family.

Was there a lot of hard work because horses, 365 days a year, seven days a week.

My mama would sit in the window sewing.

And when she'd see rain on that horse fly by, she wanted daddy to take that horse away from the house.

One Sunday we were, We had us a race for a dime.

Then no old car come walking across and we ran into the cow.

So we had to rerun the race.

From there, it was the Louisiana bush tracks to his first triumph at Evangeline Downs in July 1969.

Back then, they had a lot of good riders here in southern Louisiana, and especially at abandoned downs.

We worked hard in the mornings and it wasn't so much, you know, you're in there and I'm going to beat you.

You're going to beat me.

It was just working hard and trying to get our career started.

I've heard you talk about what you call the advantage of Cajun riders.

Yeah.

And the early exposure that you had that that group of people around sunset, Louisiana and Lafayette.

But the fact that you became familiar with horses and all of the special things that go with that, maybe before some other riders.

Well, the guys that were born and raised in the cities or, well, they didn't have anywhere to ride horses and us, the Cajun riders on Sunday afternoon after church, you know, after church, we'd go straight to the mattresses and they had probably 20 racetracks around sunset going south, you know, all the way to Abbeville and Rain and Church Point.

And they had racetracks all over.

And you just picked the one where somebody wanted you to go ride, and you'd go there that Sunday afternoon.

What's the relationship between the jockey and a 1,200 pound horse that weighs eight times more than the jockey?

What's the relationship that you try to build to become a team?

Human and horse?

Well, the first thing is, you're not gonna.

You're not gonna strengthen.

You know, he's gonna outmuscled you every time you got.

Gotta try to get him to do what you want and think it's his idea.

Do they have different personalities?

Oh, yeah.

Everyone is different.

And you just, you know, if you haven't been on him before, then the trainer can tell you a lot of things.

What to do.

And I tell a story about a horse I rode at Santa Anita.

Yo, for the guy that owns the Oaklawn Park nine and Hot Springs, Arkansas.

And he wasn't there, but he sent the horse there, and we're walking out the paddock.

And the trainer.

I don't think the trainer came either, but he sent him to another trainer.

And we were walking out of the paddock and the groom came with him and the groom told me, he said look when you get into the stretch I hit him left handed.

If you hit him left handed he'll really take off your rear brake if you hit him enough.

And so I did, and the horse won.

So when I was telling the story, you know, a lot of people said, what did you do?

Well, every horse I rode from that man at all.

And I asked the groom, had you got any idea?

See?

Okay.

Anything that could help me.

You were inclusive in your preparation, the way I know you got to, you know, breed the race form you got to.

And and after you ride with a certain bunch of riders, you know, you're with them every day, right?

You learn that that tendencies learn.

And like, they learn mind too, but you learn what they going to do, and they usually do it every time.

But but a typical day for you at a racetrack might be, what, eight, nine, ten races?

Eight?

And how do you get a how do you get that relationship with that horse when it's just one right after another?

Yeah.

Well, you've you've got about ten minutes to warm up and everything, but do you usually have done work the horse in the morning atomic do.

But that'll be a lot of times when you didn't, you know, and you don't know nothing about him.

And you just go and experience.

And, there are 4624 career wins.

Follow the civil made his name at some of the nation's top Midwest tracks in the 1970s, and also became a fixture on the California circuit, riding with long time Brand and Louisiana Hall of Famer Eddie Della, who say it was a tough circuit.

I mean, you had Bill Shoemaker.

Yeah.

Lafayette pinkeye.

You had, Chris McCann.

You had Fernando Toro.

You were with the elite.

He was back in that era where jockeys would not only ride in the afternoon, but they spent a lot of time galloping horses in the morning and then taking care of all the horses.

Only one of his major wins came in 1988, when he drove Great Communicator to the wire and a dramatic stretch drive in the Breeders Cup.

I had rode that horse for that angle in the morning right before Ray got on.

When I told that, I said, I'm not going to fit this up.

And so he got Ray ready for the start of the fifth Breeders Cup Turf there off.

Great communicator broke right in stride.

Now he's out to take the early lead.

Nobody really gave him a shot except the trainer and me.

And the night before the race, everything that might happen.

We talked about it and he could have wrapped it up in one sentence.

Stay off the rail.

No.

Ray Savill asking.

Great communicator for run.

They're trying to shake loose from sunshine forever of who looms a threatening menace just off this planet on the outside.

And what happened coming down the stretch?

The first time I had about six horses behind me that that couldn't go anywhere.

That was just bouncing off each other because he told me to stay off the rail and then across the track in a dramatic confrontation.

Great communicator.

But that day, rain was at his best looking, great communicator to the front as the rest of the pack started closing in on him.

Unyielding sunshine, forever determined.

Great communicator.

Great communicator.

Will not be the guy.

You talked about that Breeders Cup victory.

You had a little bit of a an interesting way of celebrating it after the race, didn't you?

Yeah.

You go well.

Well, all afternoon I was watching LSU and Alabama football.

Football.

Yeah.

So after winning the race and I watched it till, but they went in about the middle of the middle about the third quarter.

And then I had to go.

And then I had to get out that when the race.

And then you go in the room with all the reporters and you got about 20 right there, and you hooked up about 20 or 30 in the grandstand.

And we were talking all about that, the race.

And then I got back in the Jackson Room just in time to see David Brown could kick the winning heel goal to beat Alabama.

And nothing's better than beating Alabama, even if it's just won the Breeders Cup.

Yeah, yeah, okay, I can tell you're a football.

Yeah.

Oh, and baseball too.

Okay.

Baseball, LSU baseball.

Well, I can remember my dad getting a radio when we were little bitty kids getting the radio with John Ferguson was the announcer.

And if we lose and he had the radio right then we were all around the radio.

We didn't even want to go to church the next day.

We figured everybody was laughing at, A year after his 2004 retirement, Sybil was named the winner of the prestigious George Wolfe Memorial Award, which honors writers whose career and character Ernestine for the individual and the sport of Thoroughbred racing.

What makes it most cherished is that the award is voted on by peers.

He's worked hard all his years, all these years and, been a great asset to our sport.

He was well known and well liked keeping it close to home.

So Bill became only the 11th individual associated with the sport of horse racing to be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

Very, very glorious.

In his world famous, he really put the civil name on the map.

Congratulations on your induction into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

As you join some legendary jockeys from your part of the state.

And, it's been wonderful getting to know you.

And, we we wish you the very best.

Well, thank you.

You know, I tried hard that was the thing I wanted to give the owner the best shot he had at making some money because the, It was expensive back then to own a racehorse.

Now it's even more expensive.

So you got to give the owner and the trainer their best shot, you know, because when they put me up on the horse and we leave the paddock and they're out of control and I'm in control, and, that's a scary thought.

If you don't like the ride or run.

If you enjoyed this conversation, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum has exhibits and stories about Louisiana's sports.

Great Natchitoches is where history and fun blend with our state's rich sports culture.

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