At 51, jockey Baird catching second wind

When a 50-year-old jockey with more than three decades of race-riding behind him doesn’t accept a mount for a year and a half, you figure that’s it – game over.

But then E.T. Baird never has been an easy rider to figure.

Baird rode a race Dec. 16, 2016, at Hawthorne and didn’t ride again until this month. For a jockey this seasoned, though, riding a horse race must be something like riding a bicycle – it’s not something you forget how to do. Baird finished second on his first mount and has won with his three since then.

“I hadn’t broken a horse out of the gate for a year and a half before the first one,” said Baird, who is 51 now. “I’m not gonna lie: The first one back, you got to get under yourself a little bit. But I feel good out there, actually amazingly so. I feel way better than I did before I quit. Nothing’s hurting now.”

Baird said sciatica caused the worst pre-layoff pain he experienced. He said inversion boots, from which one hangs suspended upside down on a bar, helped fix that problem. Baird has 2,401 career wins and would like to ramp up his business now that he’s back in the game. He has no agent for the time being, but everybody at Arlington knows E.T. at this point.

“I’m pretty much going to ride for the people I’m going to ride for,” Baird said. “I’m pretty comfortable doing it for myself.”

And Baird, who has made his living as a gate and speed master, still looks pretty comfortable on horseback.