LOUISVILLE, Ky. — When Rich Strike, the longest shot, crossed the finish line first with jockey Sonny Leon in this year’s Kentucky Derby, his groom, Jerry Dixon Jr., was just as stunned as everyone else.
“I had to talk to Sonny and ask Sonny like, ‘Are we really on the grass in the Winner’s Circle?’ Dixon recalled. “He said, ‘Yes.’ I say, ‘Is this real? Am I dreaming?’ Sonny said, ‘Watch the roses.’ He threw the roses. A rose petal hit my arm.”
Seven days a week, Dixon is right alongside Rich Strike.
“We knew what he could do,” said Dixon. “We knew how good he was. We just never thought that we would actually win.”
When the horse is finished with his workout, Dixon’s work is just getting started.
He’s responsible for making sure Rich Strike looks and feels his best.
“I’m putting fresh shavings in his stall so he can have a nice comfortable place to lay when he wants to sleep,” he told Spectrum News 1 from inside the horse’s stall. “That’s the key thing. If the horse doesn’t get any rest, it won’t be able to perform.”
After a cool down and a bath, he focuses on the colt’s legs, rubbing them with Castile soap.
Groom Jerry Dixon Jr. applies Castile soap to the legs of Derby winner Rich Strike, with the help of his father, Jerry Dixon Sr. (Spectrum News 1/Erin Kelly)
Dixon is a fourth generation horseman from Cincinnati, who works with his father, Jerry Dixon Sr., a groom and assistant trainer.
He starts his day at 4:30 a.m. and most if it is spent with the horse he calls “Richie.”
“If there’s anything wrong with him, (I) tell the trainer because we spend more time with the horse than the trainer does on a day-to-day basis,” said Dixon Jr.
Trainer Eric Reed said there’s not a harder worker in the barn than Dixon and Rich Strike “loves him to death.”
“He’s got a bond with that horse that nobody else does,” he said.
Dixon loves what he does and finds working with horses to be therapeutic, he said.
If there’s one thing the horse has taught him, it’s to never quit.
No matter what happens in the Belmont Stakes, he will always carry that Derby Day feeling.
“The first Saturday of May ... there’s nothing that will top that feeling, honestly,” said Dixon. “Nothing, nothing.”
Rich Strike did not take part in the Preakness Stakes, but is expected to run in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 11.