Jockeys Season 2 DVD Review

“You’re going to get hurt, it’s just how bad,” veteran jockey Mike Smith tells us in the TV series Jockey Season 2, released on DVD as a two-disc set on February 9th by GAIAM and Animal Planet. The narrator goes on to tell us that every year two jockeys die in North America. This is because it’s a hazardous sport for humans, more so than for the thoroughbred horses, who are watched closely and checked constantly by vets and even scratched from running the Kentucky Derby (as happened to young 19-yr.-old Joe Talamo fifteen minutes before the esteemed race when the horse I Want Revenge was determined by a vet to have a small lesion and barred from running this race for the good of the horse). These races, only two minutes in length and representing millions of gambling dollars – with some gamblers betting their entire life fortunes – and exceedingly large purses, like the six million dollar Dubai Race won by Aaron Gryder, are the cause of major jockey accidents. One of the featured jockeys in this TV series, Iggy Puglisi, had his back broken and incurred major neck injuries and was forced to stop racing for two years, almost a death knell to his career, during which time he could only walk race horses for fifteen dollars an hour.

Some people think that the jockeys are forcing the horses to run, but the horses themselves are both bred and want to run, as female jockey Chantal Sutherland tells us, and “it’s an amazing feeling having them underneath you wanting to fly like the wind.” The horses are very individual, with quirks like some wanting to start out early in a race and staying in the lead, some preferring to start in a group of horses (since they’re pack animals) and then taking the lead later, and others liking a start at the back initially – thus what position a horse rides on in the track is very important. The pairing of horse and jockey can be, in my mind, like a short marriage which, through natural chemistry, may turn out successfully or fare very badly.

It’s a male-dominated field with few facilities for women, and even male-dominated in terms of the horses, as some owners don’t want to take the risk of buying or expensively training female horses. This is because some female horses later decide to want to mate and have foals, totally negating the owner’s investment.

This is an absolutely excellent series with great insights into the human problems of those involved (constant ups-and-downs and the difficulties of assigning agents to find you the best horses to ride, which changes constantly based on the opinions of the owners and trainers, for races where anything can happen and before which horses can be injured on planes or just in the middle of the night by kicking a stall). Explanations of the races, like the claiming race where a horse can be bought – “claimed” – anonymously for a fairly low price fifteen minutes before a race and then the new owner keeps the purse, are highly informative. (For this reason many horses are hidden in unlabeled backstalls and trained at night so potential buyers won’t be aware of them.) Life lessons like being very young (19-yr.-old Joe Talamo), aging (Mike Smith, in his 40’s), female in a male-dominated profession (Chantal Sutherland and Kayla Stra), overly-aggressive (Corey Nakatani), injured in a major way (Iggy Puglisi), previously addicted to alcohol and drugs (Garrett Gomez), and striving for continued achievement and higher status (Aaron Gryder and Alex Solis) are seriously addressed. The narration is so impeccably unobtrusive that you feel as if a good friend is commenting to you personally about what’s happening visually.

Amazing writing has each episode beginning and ending philosophically with quotes like “To not take the risk is the highest risk of all,” “In real life not every Daniel beats his Goliath,” and “Our lives can be defined by the size of our dreams, and the most ambitious of us dream big.” The episodes involve human traits like fear, uncertainty, surviving in a hugely competitive atmosphere (“like swimming with sharks”), money, underdogs, necessary split-moment decisions that can carry the weight of your entire career, love or loneliness, and learning that “there’s no such thing as a sure thing.”

It’s a very unusual and demanding sport (most jockeys average 109 pounds in weight but do athletic training constantly to stay strong for racing events, sometimes eating meals consisting of twelve almonds!). As the narrator tells us, “Victory relies on a relationship forged over thousands of years: the relationship between a man and a horse” and this partnership usually involves “a 120 pound human and a 1200 pound horse”! It demands every moment of your time and can make or break you in a second
- “You can be on the highest of highs and then go home in an ambulance.” I highly recommend this inspiring series for everyone as a detailed glimpse into a world of which we are usually not aware. In the zen-like words of jockey Mike Smith, giving advice on how to think during a race (from which we all can benefit): “Don’t let your mind get ahead of you, don’t let your mind get behind you – keep it right in the middle.”

MPAA Rating: PG
Running Time: 301 minutes
DVD Release Date: February 9, 2010

Grade: A+

DVD  on 2 discs: 7 one-hour episodes and a Season 1 recap, plus Bonus Features
With jockeys Chantal Sutherland, Iggy Puglisi, Mike Smith, Kayla Stra, Alex Solis, Joe Talamo, Aaron Gryder, Garrett Gomez and Corey Nakatani

Jockeys Season 2 DVD Review by Christina of Movie Room Reviews

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