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Stephen Mark Cauthen was born on May 1, 1960 in Covington, Kentucky, the son of a trainer and farrier. Growing up on his family’s 40-acre farm in Walton, Kentucky, Cauthen learned about horses from the ground up – mucking stalls, cleaning tack and grooming parents’ horses. That, along with the fact that at age twelve he was still a foot shorter than anyone else in his class at school – although he later grew to 5ft 5ins – led him to dream of becoming a jockey. At sixteen, and with his father’s assistance, he managed to take out a licence and ride his first race on King of Swot at Churchill Downs on May 12, 1976. He finished last. But just five days later, after traveling to River Downs in neighbouring Ohio, he won his first race on a gelding named Red Pipe. The date was May 17, 1976.
From there, his experience, skill and confidence grew in leaps and bounds. Within two months he'd won 120 races. Chicago was the next stop, where Cauthen became the second leading rider at both Hawthorne and Arlington Park. In 1977, along with being the nation's leader in wins with 487, Cauthen also became the first jockey to win $6 million in a single season. This earned him not only a cover and Sportsman of the Year title from Sports Illustrated
but also the nicknames "The Six Million Dollar Man" or "Stevie Wonder." The racing industry rewarded him with Eclipse Awards for both apprentice and outstanding jockey.
It was during this meteoric rise that Cauthen was introduced to the horse that would forever define his career - a
chestnut two-year-old named Affirmed from the Harbor View Farm Stable of Lou and Patrice Wolfson. Trained by the Hall of Famer Laz Barrera, the team won the Sanford Stakes, but it wasn't until their second race together that Cauthen really felt he was on the best horse he'd ever ridden. All the while a talented competitor - Calumet Farm's Alydar - was making his own headlines that would challenge them to the upmost limits.Affirmed and Cauthen went out west in their Derby preparation, winning both the San Felipe and Santa Anita Derby while Alydar raced in the east winning the Florida Derby and Bluegrass Sakes. The two would wage epic battles in the 1978 Triple Crown and the rest is legend, with Cauthen piloting the speedy Affirmed to ever decreasing victory margins over the late-running Alydar throughout the spring classics.
Cauthen saw a length's victory in the Kentucky Derby shrink to a neck in the Preakness, and understood that the Alydar team's best and last chance for redemption would come in the grueling Belmont Stakes.
There, in virtual lockstep for the final mile, the two champions slugged it out, with Jorge Velasquez aboard Alydar pressed so tightly to the outside of Affirmed that Cauthen could do little more than hand-ride his determined mount to encourage him. At the wire Cauthen and Affirmed bested their glorious rival by a mere four inches, and Cauthen became the youngest jockey ever to win the Triple Crown. To the present day, they are the last to win the most elusive achievement in the sport..
By the end of the decade, after a knee injury and a growth spurt that left him struggling to make weight, Cauthen began to experience a slump and opted to move his tack to Europe, where jockeys average a higher riding weight. There he rejuvenated both career and confidence, becoming England's leading rider for three years in the mid-80s with wins in all of the most historic Group I events as well as winning the Epsom, French, Irish and Italian Derbies during his 14 year stint abroad.
He came to Britain at the invitation of Robert Sangster to ride for trainer Barry Hills. His first mount in Britain was a winning one, Marquee Universal at Salisbury on April 7, 1979. Within a month of that victory he won his first British classic, the 1979 2,000 Guineas on Tony Shead’s colt Tap On Wood, trained by Barry Hills.
He went on to win ten British classics, nine of them on horses trained by Henry Cecil, with whom he enjoyed a hugely successful partnership as stable jockey during the 1980s. The included two Derby victories with Slip Anchor and Reference Point and the fillies’ triple crown on Oh So Sharp. He also won five Irish classics, the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) and the Derby Italiano. He was champion jockey in Britain three times, in 1984, 1985 and 1987.
His haul of major wins in Britain included:
Derby: Slip Anchor (1985), Reference Point (1987)
Oaks: Oh So Sharp (1985), Diminuendo (1988), Snow Bride (1989)
St Leger: Oh So Sharp (1985), Reference Point 91987), Michelozzo (1989)
2,000 Guineas: Tap On Wood (1979)
1,000 Guineas: Oh So Sharp (1985)
King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes: Reference Point (1987)
Ascot Gold Cup: Gildoran (1984), Paean (1987)
Eclipse Stakes: Pebbles (1985)
International Stakes: Cormorant Wood (1984), Triptych (1987), In The Groove (1990)
Champion Stakes: Cormorant Wood (1983), In The Groove (1990)
Coronation Cup: Time Charter (1984), Triptych (1988), In The Groove (1991)
July Cup: Never So Bold (1985)
Nunthorpe Stakes: Sharpo (1982), Never So Bold (1985)
Middle Park Stakes: Creag-An-Sgor (1983), Gallic League (1987), Balla Cove (1989), Zieten (1992)
Gimcrack Stakes: Reprimand (1987)
Racing Post Trophy: Be My Chief (1989), Peter Davies (1990)
Coventry Stakes: High Estate (1988)
Goodwood Cup: Heighlin (1982), Gildoran (1984)
Doncaster Cup: Spicy Story (1985)
Chester Cup: Arapahos (1980)
Royal Hunt Cup: Mighty Fly (1983), Vague Shot (1987)
Lincoln Handicap: Mighty Fly (1983)
Cambridgeshire Handicap: Braughing (1981), Risen Moon (1990)
His classic wins in Ireland were:
Irish 1,000 Guineas: In The Groove (1990)
Irish Derby: Old Vic (1989)
Irish Oaks: Diminuendo (dead-heat, 1988), Possessive Dancer (1991)
Irish St Leger: Mashaallah (1992)
In France, he won the Prix du Jockey Club on Old Vic (1989) and the Grand Prix de Paris twice on Risk Me (1987) and Saumarez (1990).
In Italy, he won the Derby Italiano on Hailsham (1991) and the Gran Criterium on Tanque Verde (1985)
He rode his last British winner on Shaiba at Newmarket on October 30, 1992. He returned to Kentucky at the end of that year.
Marriage and family brought Cauthen's illustrious riding career to a close in 1992. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1994, Cauthen also was awarded the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in 1984 as well as ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year in 1978. Cauthen now owns and operates his own Thoroughbred breeding farm in north central Kentucky and squeezes in charitable appearances between his daughters' many school activities.
He, like his greatest mount Affirmed, will be forever linked to the sequence of titanic battles of heart and speed with Alydar over three decades removed.
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