John Rotz

The late Hall of Fame jockeys Walter Blum, John Rotz and Bobby Ussery will be honored at the 10th annual Jockeys and Jeans Fundraiser for the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund (PDJF) to be held Saturday, Jan. 11, at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Florida. Blum was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a newspaper delivery person, and was inducted into the Jewish Hall of Fame in 1986 and into the National Museum of Racing the following year. The recipient of the 1964 George Woolfe Memorial Jockey Award, he...

So the big question is whether the out-of-town jocks, in the heat of a $1-million battle for the GI TVG.com Haskell S., can master the instinct to reach for the whip? If any lifelong flagellants are anxious of their self-discipline, then they need only play back the 1988 running and remind themselves how Laffit Pincay, Jr. coaxed Forty Niner home, in withering heat, by a nose from Seeking the Gold. The whip is unsheathed, for sure, but so seamlessly with the horse's own efforts that the overall effect is like...

Hall of Fame jockey John Rotz, a GI Preakness S. and GI Belmont S. winner, passed away peacefully Monday at his farm in Warrensburg, Illinois after battling a number of brain diseases, including dementia. He was 86. Classy, polite and down-to-earth, Rotz was known as "Gentleman John," a nickname he earned shortly after his riding career began in the fifties. After retiring in 1973, he worked as a steward at the NYRA tracks as well as at tracks in Louisiana, Ohio and Delaware. After ending his stint as a steward,...