C.V. Behr: Maryland’s Next Jockey Star?
C.V. Behr walks back to the jockey’s quarters by himself, still trying to figure out how things run in the Maryland peninsula. It’s been a day of mixed blessings that ended early, with runs all over the weekend card. He won a race for me aboard my colt Take Away, earning that horse his first win four races off a claim for me. He was a hard-charging second in the opening race this particular day, a game but tired fourth for me in the feature, and ran fourth, fifth (twice), sixth, and seventh on the Saturday slate of races. In spite of what appears to be a pretty decent day for a brand new jockey, most emblematic in his first summer of racing was his ride on a 47-1 shot, a firster for me by the name of Walk On By, who had to watch as most every entry in this MSW race could have done just that. Twice.
“She had less than nothing,” C.V. Behr confided in me as we walked from the paddock following my Love Of Irene’s fourth-place run in the Zero Contradiction Bonanza. “It was as if she was caught in the starting gate at Saratoga. She just wouldn’t go, and that was disappointing.” Actually, he used another adjective for “disappointing”, which I concurred with—after all, I have had some good recent success with her sire Bwana Charlie this summer, and this result, a 45 speed figure for a three-year-old filly debuting, was heinous—but this is a family-friendly publication, the BTB. It was a source of frustration for me, but more evident was the irritation for this young man in his first Sim summer as a jockey.
“It’s tough. You start at the bottom, you have to hustle hard for mounts, and unless you have an in with a trainer, there’s a lot of times you can’t even beg for scraps, because no one’s there to give you anything. It’s the same thing all over: can’t get a job without experience, can’t get experience without a job.” Since he came out on the circuit this summer, C.V. has really suffered along with all of the other new jockeys to Sim racing. Fortunately, he and I have a certain connection from the start. It’s as if we share the same brain sometimes, honestly. And since I have racing stock that hasn’t necessarily been shining on center stage in Sim racing for much of the year, I decided to toss him a bone; whenever I’ve been running in Maryland this summer, I’ve given him first call for my horses.
“It was a rough start. You were putting me on some real cows.” C.V. isn’t one to gripe…too loudly. “There were times where I just had to say no, you can’t do this to me. But when I started doing better, the more comfortable I became. Now, even if I’m on 500-1 shots, I feel like I can put what I’ve learned to work.” He upped his win total to seven this weekend, with a victory on Take Away, where he stuck close to the pace and made a move in the stretch to pull away by two lengths. Doesn’t winning do a lot to change your thinking? “It helps to come in first, and today just set up nicely, your horse (Take Away) just relaxed beautifully off the lead, and when go time came around, I had a lot of horse left. He’s a nice one for that level. But yeah, winning is helpful, it makes the low times of riding herd on a bunch of slowpokes seem worthwhile.”
Is he a one-dimensional type? “No, I do what I’m told a lot, had a filly in today’s first that needed to be taken back going ten (furlongs), then let loose in the lane, and she came to ’em late, I just ran out of ground, and that’s maybe my fault, I thought the pace up front would be a little fast than it was. Next time, though…” Still, for all he’s learning, it’s a steep curve. Most of his weeks have involved a string of races like the balance of his card, where he’s stuck on horses who are stuck in mid-pack themselves. Another firster today, my colt Quinton’s Dancer, first time out, first time on grass, seemed to be alright with the surface, but had little to do late, when caught drifting slowly in reverse in mid-pack. C.V. told me “he liked the grass under his feet, I kept him pretty close, but after a while he just seemed to be in neutral. He didn’t want to go anywhere, and just floated in the middle of everything. I wasn’t too happy about it, it’s like there’s a lot of things I know how to do, but the horses themselves don’t know how to get to where I want to go.”
Still, with even the mediocre horses giving him experience in the irons, he’s not complaining. In two weeks he went from the bottom of the pack in win percentage to the top 10 on the circuit. Even if it’s just now seven wins, it’s as if people are beginning to know his name. “Once I got going, it’s been getting better every morning. People are beginning to notice I’m here, and the mounts I’ve been getting are a little better than before. And they’re not mixing me up with the valets anymore in the jock’s room.”
What’s his dream? “I want to win a big race. Heck, I just wanna get a stakes win. I get the feeling I’m close, I thought I had today’s on your filly (Love Of Irene), but she just couldn’t stop everyone from charging at her, and in the last eighth she just felt tired, so I had to gear her down a bit. Nice filly, but I want to get there in a big race before the year’s out. We’ll see. I gotta get the phone to ring more first.”
And with that, it’s off to the jock’s room, to shower up and head home for the day. C.V. Behr isn’t a crab cake person. Tomorrow, he’ll be back out before dawn, hustling the Sim trainers for a mount or two, looking for the respect to get a better career off and running on Maryland’s fine racing circuit. As he said before heading into the jockey’s quarters, “It never stops. I can’t rely on you forever to help out, I need to get by any way I can. I’ll come out tomorrow, try to hook up for next week, see if I can get a few live mounts. It’s like it was when I was back on the farm, where I couldn’t sleep in on a Sunday. There’s always something new to be done.”