Rick Wilson (jockey)
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Rick Wilson (born August 12, 1953, in McAlester, Oklahoma) is a retired American jockey and a member of the inaugural class of inductees into the Parx Racing Hall of Fame.[1] During his riding career, Wilson had 4,939 wins from 24,681 starts and total earnings of $77,303,270.[2]
Wilson was able to achieve success from an early age, starting his thirty-five-year career in 1972 when he achieved his first win as a teenager racing quarter horses in his native Oklahoma.[3] Wilson had a 4,939-win career, which ranked him at the time, twentieth all-time amongst jockeys. He also earned 4,250 seconds and 3,461 thirds. His top winning mount was the filly Xtra Heat, the 2001 American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly with which he had thirteen wins and two second-place finishes. Wilson fondly refers to her as “all heart, one in a million.” Wilson has seven Triple Crown mounts during his career, with five in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course and two in the Kentucky Derby. The best day of his career was a six-win day at Philadelphia Park. In 2005 he was nominated for the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award for high standards of professional conduct in racing and life.[4] Wilson is quoted in The Baltimore Sun “’It's a rush being a rider,’ he said. ‘If you ride enough, you know you're going to get hurt. But you can get killed crossing a road, too.’” [5]