Jose Santos began riding at the tender age of 14. After competing in his native Chile and then Colombia, he came to the United States with high hopes in 1984. Eight months after his arrival, he was in despair.
Business at the Florida tracks was bad; his spirits were worse.
“I was not doing anything,” he said. “I had tough times.”
His ability, though, had not gone completely unnoticed. P.J. Simms, a trainer in search of a rider he could depend on, spotted his potential.
“You help me,” he told Santos, “and I will help you.”
Racing history features a long list of well-documented near-misses. They are the horses that came teasingly close to winning the Triple Crown, but fell short for one reason or another.
Falling into a far different category are the could haves and should haves. The horses who should have won the Triple Crown or could have captured it … but never even made it to one of the races.
Tom Fool is perhaps one of the sport’s greatest could haves/should haves.
At two, he was a champion. At four, he dominated the year in a fashion few other runners have matched.
When MacKenzie Miller was a young man, he made a gallant effort to follow a “traditional” career path, one encouraged by his father. He started college, but didn’t graduate. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps, but didn’t make a career of the military.
Instead, “Mack” Miller followed his passion and turned to training Thoroughbred racehorses. When he retired on his own terms in 1995, no one could deny that he had chosen the right path.
