Robbie Davis
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Robbie G. Davis (born July 18, 1961 in Pocatello, Idaho) is a retired American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey.
Davis grew up in a single parent household forced onto welfare, something that would impact him for the rest of his life. In 1997, he was honored by Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Long Island for his support of that organization.
Robbie Davis began his involment with horse racing as a stable boy, cleaning horse stalls at a racetrack in his native Idaho and by age seventeen was riding in quarter horse races at county fairs. In 1981 he switched to Thoroughbred flat racing and in 1982 moved to compete at New York area tracks. He earned his first Grade I victory in the 1985 Meadowlands Cup on board Bounding Basque.
During his career, Davis won a number of premier races including the 1986 Washington, D.C. International Stakes, the 1994 Pimlico Special and Canadian International Stakes, as well as the 1998 Wood Memorial Stakes. His best result in two Kentucky Derby starts was a fifth with Mecke in 1995 with whom he also finished fifth in the Preakness Stakes. Of his five mounts in the Belmont Stakes, Davis's best finish came aboard Kingpost in the 1988 running won by Risen Star.
On October 13, 1988, Robbie Davis was involved in a racing accident at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York that claimed the life of friend and fellow jockey, Mike Venezia. The trauma resulted in Davis leaving racing for several years. After returning briefly on a few occasions, he came back full time in 1992. Five years later, he was voted the Mike Venezia Memorial Award which honor a jockey who exemplifies extraordinary sportsmanship and citizenship.
Retired, in 2002, Davis served as a Director at large for the Jockeys' Guild. In 2006, he was nominated for induction in the U.S. Racing Hall of Fame.
A classic car collector, he and his wife own an eighty-acre farm in upstate New York, not far from the Saratoga Race Course. Parents of six children, their daughter Jacqueline was one of eleven students in the inaugural class at the North American Racing Academy in Versailles, Kentucky founded as a jockey training program through the auspices of the Kentucky Community Technical College System. [1]
