 Coady
Photography
Veteran Jockey Bill Ives Retires After Riding
Wild N Wicked Jd To Hialeah Win
Hialeah, FL, Jan. 2, 2012 – Veteran jockey Bill Ives, always a
popular rider at every track he rode, went out a winner at Hialeah
Park Sunday in the final ride of his career. Ives piloted Wild N
Wicked Jd, a four-year-old Jackie Kirby trainee, to his fifth
consecutive win in the featured $20,000-added Beautiful Prairie
Stakes at 220 yards.
The stakes win was the icing on the cake of a big final weekend for
Ives. In all, he won five races over the course of the three-day
racing week at this iconic South Florida track.
Ives, who had been contemplating his retirement, let many of the
local horsemen know during the last week of 2011 that he was going
to hang up his tack after New Year’s Day. Ives, who will turn 51 in
a little over a month, first rode in pari-mutuel races in 1980. He
competed for 11 years before taking a long 17 year break from
competitive race riding. During that time, Ives competed in rodeos
and showed horses. He resumed his riding career in 2008 and has
ridden at many of the major Quarter Horse tracks in America since
then, including Hialeah Park, Prairie Meadows, Remington Park, Will
Rogers Downs, and Boise.
Ives mentioned Chi Ter (2011 Hialeah Invitational winner), Stone E
Motion (a multiple stakes winner at 870 yards), Eyeowa Cyclone (a
winner of five straight races at Remington Park in 2011), and Wild N
Wicked Jd (five straight wins, from claiming to stakes ranks) as
four of his favorite horses.
Ives plans to return to his home state of Washington where he plans
to spend more time with his family and get involved in the fishing,
shrimping, and crabbing business.
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