Hall-of-Fame jockey Gary Stevens, 49, a winner of three Kentucky Derbys, said yesterday he is coming out of retirement after seven years and will resume riding in Sunday’s sixth race at Santa Anita. Stevens made the announcement on HRTV, for which he works as an analyst.
“My knees probably didn’t feel this good the last five years I rode,” Stevens said. “I’ve been getting on horses for the past eight weeks, and there’s been a lot of speculation about me coming back. I’ve worked some exciting horses, a couple in particular that kind of made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and I said, ‘Man, I missed this.’ ”
In addition to his Derby victories on Winning Colors (1988), Thunder Gulch (1995) and Silver Charm (1997), Stevens, a native of Idaho, also has won eight Breeders’ Cup races, two Preaknesses and three Belmonts. He also starred as jockey George “The Iceman” Woolf in the movie “Seabiscuit.”