by Vickie Hauff
When the birth announcement was written, nowhere did it say that this baby boy, born May 1, 1960 to Ronald “Tex” and Myra Cauthen, would make history.
 
Seventeen years later, Steve Cauthen did just that when his face graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, donned in his pink silks, smiling ear to ear, the teenager became the first jockey to receive the title Sportsman of the Year, beating out Muhamed Ali and Reggie Jackson and to date, the only jockey to receive this prestigious sports title after 447 winning rides in 1977.
 
At the time, Joe Hirsch, a columnist for the Daily Racing Form had stated, “There is no way to explain this magic that Cauthen has with horses.” Hirsch also claimed that after seeing Cauthen in more than 1,000 races, he “had never once seen him make a mistake. Never.”
 
Growing up on a 40 acre farm in Kentucky, with Thoroughbred enthusiasts as parents, Cauthen along with his two younger brothers, Doug and Kerry, mucked stalls, groomed and fed horses and were generally interested in sports as kids.
 
His father, Ronald, better known as “Tex” was a blacksmith and his mother, Myra, trained horses that the family raised, always hoping for a Derby contender.
 
By the age of 12 however, Cauthen got the idea he wanted to become a jockey. “When I came back to school after summer break, I realized that all the other kids had grown about a foot and I was still the same size,” he says.
 
Being interested in sports and realizing he would have a hard time competing in typical school sports because of his small stature, Cauthen says it made him think more about horses and more about becoming a jockey. “So I read a couple books and started to get the dream,” he says. A boy’s dream that would later become a lifetime career and make racing history worldwide.
 
At 16 he received his license and a few days later, with the help of Tex, landed a mount in a small race at Churchill Downs.
 
“That was the track that was open in Kentucky at the time, and I had a hard time getting the mount that I got. It wasn’t like everybody was rushing to get me a mount,” Cauthen says.
 
“My dad pretty much had to ask this trainer that this guy knew to get me a mount. And he did, he gave me this horse that he pulled out of the field a couple of weeks before and was just getting fit again and let me ride, cause he was only fit to go about three furlongs and the race was six furlongs so he got dead tired -- but it was a chance to get in the race and get out of the gate for the first time.”
 
The pair came in second to last but it launched a successful career for Cauthen that would span over the next 17 years.
 
A week later, he won his first race at River Downs in Cincinnati, Ohio, and within two months Cauthen had won 120 races there.
 
He went on to Chicago for the following two months, becoming the second leading rider at Arlington Park after winning 40 some races in a month. He moved on to Hawthorne Racetrack, Chicago’s answer to Belmont, becoming the second leading rider there as well.
 
He went back home to Churchill Downs, where he was second leading rider behind Don Brumfield who was the perennial leading rider at the time, before moving on to New York.
 
It was in New York that Cauthen’s career really took off. Within his first month he landed around 30 wins, closing out the season.
 
The following year Cauthen won 447 races landing him on the cover of Sports Illustrated as 1977 Sportsman of the Year, at the tender age of 17. At the time he also held the record in winnings at $6.1 million.  
 
Cauthen was also the recipient of three Eclipse Awards that year, a prestigious award given by the Thoroughbred Association to honor excellence in Thoroughbred racing.
 
Cauthen tried to keep up with his school studies by taking correspondent courses during these two years while working full time as a jockey and later earned his G.E.D.
 
Although Cauthen was a teenager living a completely different life than other kids his age, living away from home, family and friends, he managed to keep a mature outlook and says he didn’t feel he was missing out on anything.
 
“I couldn’t care less, I loved what I was doing,” he says.
 
In 1978, Cauthen started riding for Laz Barerra and again history was about to be made when he mounted a young 2-year-old colt named Affirmed.
 
Affirmed was foaled on February 21, 1975 at Harbour View Farm in Florida and began his racing career at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977, winning his maiden race.
 
At his third race, the Great American Stakes, Affirmed lost for the first time to Allydar and a rivalry of royal proportions began.  
 
By August 17, Affirmed was in Saratoga after numerous wins across the country and his jockey, Angel Cordaro, Jr. chose another mount for the Sanford Stakes. Barerra gave Cauthen the mount and the pair won easily.
 
It wasn’t until his second ride on Affirmed that Cauthen says he felt something special happening. That’s when he knew Affirmed was probably the best horse he had ever ridden. “He was a special horse and I think we had a great partnership together.”
 
By the time the Triple Crown began, Affirmed and Cauthen were a dynamic team, beating rival Allydar over and over again.
 
Allydar was to give Affirmed the challenge of a lifetime by the third race.
 
Cauthen says he wasn’t focused on winning the Triple Crown but instead was concentrating on winning each race. It wasn’t until after winning the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness that Cauthen started thinking about the possibility of winning the Crown if he could tackle the strenuous Belmont Stakes.
 
“After I won the first two the pressure definitely got a little heavy,” he says.
 
“It was such a tight race I wasn’t sure I was winning until I got past the post,” he says. “Obviously I was focused during the race on riding the race the way I thought I should. By the time I got into the stretch, it was apparent that it was gonna be a knock-down, drag-out battle right to the line and I knew the horse and I were going to have to dig as deep as we could because it was all or nothing at that point.”
 
Allydar was so close to Affirmed's right side that Cauthen had to hit him left handed for the first time ever. “He responded well and got his nose back in front and dug into the line.”  
 
Cauthen and Affirmed nailed the race by a mere four inches, once again defeating old rivalry Allydar.
 
Cauthen says he was relieved and elated at the win and very proud of what he and Affirmed had accomplished. “I felt proud to be a part of racing, it was an excellent moment in my life,” he says.
 
 That win made history as the eleventh Triple Crown victory ever and the youngest jockey at 18 years old, to win it. Affirmed and Cauthen still reign as the last pair in 25 years to win this title.  
 
Cauthen says now, 25 years later, that it was a great feat and unbelievably difficult to pull off. “I’m proud of the fact that we did it and proud of the way we did it,” he says. “We had a great champion to beat each time. Our Triple Crown, unlike Secretariat’s or Seattle Slew’s, where they were the dominant horses, we had a great rival to beat every time. It was great for racing.”
 
After the Royal Win, Cauthen had a run of bad races, losing the next consecutive 110 he ran.
 
A combination of events took place leading to his decision to go to England where he would spend the next 14 years riding and winning some of the toughest races in Europe.
  
Shortly after the Triple Crown win, Cauthen broke his knee after falling in Saratoga. “It was a difficult injury to come back from, my agent had had a heart attack and probably wasn’t at his best either.”
 
Cauthen’s weight was becoming a problem so he went on to England where weight limits are a litter higher. “It was probably a blessing in disguise,” he says. “Long term, it worked out to be the best thing for me.”
 
Cauthen went on to win the Irish, Italian, Epsom, and French Derbies, combined with his Kentucky Derby win, making him the only jockey in history to date to win all five.
 
He was the leading rider in England in 1984, 1985 and 1987. It was also there, in 1987 that Cauthen met his wife Amy.  
 
“I went with a friend from school my senior year,” she says. Family members of both Steve and Amy who were acquainted, arranged for Amy to have Steve as a contact in England while she was there for the five week trip. “We were friends for two years before we started dating,” she says.  
 
Amy came back to her native Kentucky and finished law school before returning to England with Steve.  
 
The couple married in January 1992 during season break in their home state of Kentucky among family and friends.
 
With their first baby on the way, Cauthen officially retired from racing after finishing out the 1992 season and settled onto a 360 acre farm in rural Kentucky where he now raises Thoroughbred’s. He was also a spokesman for Turfway Park, who recently gave away bobble-heads of the jockey as a promotion. Cauthen says they are doing a bobble-head of Affirmed as well. “It’s cute, my kids like it,” he says.
 
Affirmed went on to race as a four-year-old, winning Eclipse Awards being named Horse of the Year in both 1978 and 1979. He was retired from racing as the richest horse to that date, and stood at stud until his death at 26 in January 2001. Cauthen visited him often over those years and always holds a special place for Affirmed.
 
Cauthen says Affirmed intelligence was one of the things that made him a great horse. “He knew he was a star.”
 
Cauthen and Amy have three daughters, Katelynn, 10, Karlie, 7, and Kelsey, 2 1/2 who like horses and Katelynn, who plays violin and Karlie who plays piano, takes dance and does all those things other young ladies like to do.
 
“We’re both close to our parents, and luckily our parents live nearby so the kids have grandparents in their lives,” Cauthen adds.
 
After years living as a celebrity of the racing world,  Cauthen has settled into a life of his own. Although he says there is still a lot of media interest, he tries to maintain a normal balanced life. He likes to golf and a typical day starts at 6:00 a.m. and ends around 10:00 p.m.
He takes an active role in his children’s lives, often driving his kids to school and the family shares their home with two dogs and a cat. They also keep beef cattle and Cauthen has opened a training center and breeding farm. He and his partners have nine horses currently on the track.
 
Cauthen is down to earth and humble and seems to have handled his success well.
 
“My parents taught me not to forget who I am. I could win five Triple Crowns and it doesn’t change who I am. I still talk to the same people, still do what needs to be done. I love my family, hard work and have been blessed with a great life.”
 
Cauthen says he does not regret retiring, “I was ready,” he says. “if I’d have been smaller I would still be doing it. Weight was really what made me retire, the fact that I got sick and tired of fighting my weight. I’m 5’6, really not the right size to be a jockey.”
 
“In the end, I felt like I had had a great career and I didn’t want to ruin my health trying to do something that was unnatural.”  
 
Cauthen says he feels lucky that his career lasted so many years, stating that the average career span of a jockey is two-three years.
 
Cauthen spent 17 years pursuing his career and winning at the highest levels of competition in America and Europe and says he had a great time doing it.                                                               
“I fell in love with the idea of being a jockey when I was twelve, I dreamed of it, worked hard at it, and I did it.”
 
But in the end, Cauthen returned home. “I came back to my roots” Cauthen says, “I’m surrounded by my family, and I couldn’t be happier.”