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Frank "Frankie" Lovato, Jr. (born January 30, 1963 in Cheverly, Maryland) is a retired Award-winning American Thoroughbred jockey, inventor, and educator of horse racing. His racing career spanned from 1979 until 2004. Including one additional race in 2012, Lovato rode a total of 15,604 mounts, with 1,686 wins and finishing in the money on another 3,506. This total included wins in 111 stakes races at 25 different tracks. The horses he rode earned a total of $41,795,367.〔 In 1980 he won the Eclipse Award for Apprentice Jockey.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.tra-online.com/outstanding_apprentice.html )〕 He later went on to invent a horse riding simulator called the Equicizer and founded an educational and training program called Jockey World. Lovato is very likely the only rider to ever win the same stakes race twice in one meet. He was still an apprentice on August 6, 1980 when he rode Quintessential in the $100,000 DeWitt Clinton Stakes for trainer Johnny Campo at Saratoga Race Course. As the last horse, Move It Now, was preparing to load in a field of 11, the starter accidentally pressed the start button opening the gates and starting the race. With the favorite Move It Now still behind the gates, and other jockeys, assistant starters and horses completely surprised and unprepared, Lovato managed to break cleanly, made the lead and won aboard Quintessential. The race was declared official though a re-run of the race was created two weeks later to make up for the false start mishap. On August 25, the new race was run but under a different name, the West Point Stakes, in which Lovato and Quintessential went on to win for the second time.〔2005 Thoroughbred Times, May Edition by Bill Hiller〕 == Riding career == Frank Lovato, Jr., was born Shawn Francis Lovato, the youngest son of 4 children. His father is the multiple stakes-winning East Coast jockey Frank Lovato, Sr., who raced from 1957 until 1995.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.equibase.com/profiles/Results.cfm?type=People&searchType=J&eID=18327 )〕 Lovato Jr. expressed determination to become a jockey from age 4 when he would join his father every chance he could during morning workouts and at the races. Inheriting the name "Little Frankie" despite repeated efforts to correct people to his real first name, he ultimately decided to use the name Frank Lovato, Jr. once the time came to race professionally. Lovato spent most of this childhood growing up and going to school in the suburb of Cherry Hill, NJ. At age 14 he left home to go work on a Thoroughbred farm in Ocala, Florida where he worked as a farm hand and rider. At 16, he went to work for trainer Robert "Bobby" Murty, who put Lovato under contract and helped him get his first exercise riders' license in February 1979 at Hialeah Park Race Track. After obtaining his GED high school diploma in early 1979, as a graduation present, Murty named Frankie on his first horse in May of that same year at Hialeah. Lovato then went to Belmont Park in New York where he continued to be the head exercise rider for Murty Stable and rode a few more races over the course of the summer. He won his first race on October 9, 1979 aboard "Star T Lee" at the Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey for trainer Doug Peterson and Tayhill Stable. Murty then sent Lovato to trainer Jerry Noss in Ohio and he went on to become the 2nd leading rider of the meet and leading apprentice of the year at Thistledown. Over the course of his apprentice year, Lovato claimed leading apprentice titles not only in OH, but also in LA, NY & NJ. Lovato was voted the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Apprentice Jockey in 1980. At age 18, Lovato had mounts in the Preakness, Belmont and Travers Stakes. In the 1981 Jockey Club Gold Cup, he rode 50-1 longshot Peatmoss, almost beating the great John Henry and Bill Shoemaker, which could have been one of the biggest upsets of the decade. A week later, Frankie and Peatmoss teamed up again to win the Kelso Handicap for the 2nd year in a row. A few days later, Lovato was badly injured at the Meadowlands when his mount flipped over on top of him during the post parade. Frankie suffered a badly fractured femur requiring multiple surgeries and as a result, it cost him nearly 10 months of rehabilitation and recovery. It was during this time, Lovato developed a wooden horse to train on that later became the inspiration for the Equicizer. Based mainly on the East Coast, Lovato rode at tracks all around the country throughout a career that spanned 25 years. He rode his last race on September 19, 2004, and thereafter retired from racing. In 2012, Lovato participated in a Legends Race at Arlington Park, during a week of racing events to benefit the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund (PDJF). He and his wife Sandy, a certified Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship (PATH International) instructor, also co-founded a therapeutic riding organization, Stampede of Dreams. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Frank Lovato, Jr.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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