Hovdey: Second layer of Jerkens goes back to Onion

Hey, Jimmy Jerkens. It’s the end of June. You’re coming off the best year of your training career. The star filly in the barn is already having a good season, you’ve just collected a nice pot by an up-and-coming turf horse, and the Saratoga meet lies ahead, brimming with all its anticipatory joys. So what’s next?

Heart surgery!

Isn’t that always the way it happens. Just when things are going good, some nasty karma wave hits like a safe dropped from a third-floor window, and everything suddenly changes. Jerkens is not the first member of his profession to suffer the blow of heart trouble, and he won’t be the last. But one month after a procedure to insert stents in a pair of blocked arteries, with all the scary implications, Jerkens can be comforted by the fact that he did for himself what he tries to do for his horses – catch something going wrong before it gets worse.

“One evening around 9 o’clock I started having these horrible chest pains,” Jerkens said. “You think it’s anything but a heart attack, but you also know when your just kidding yourself.

“The next day I went to my regular doctor, and he took a blood test that showed the release of an enzyme indicating something was happening,” Jerkens went on. “Then the next day I went for a stress test, but I didn’t even get that far. The echocardiogram told them all they needed to know and I headed right for the hospital.”

Since the operation, Jerkens has been wearing a sort of life vest designed to trigger an alarm at erratic changes in heart rate for post-operative cardiac patients, and even apply a defibrillation charge in extreme cases.

“I started currying a horse the other day and that set it off,” Jerkens said. “It’s pretty sensitive in detecting any changes in the heart rate, so I guess if you’re wearing it you’ve got to be pretty sedentary.”

We will pause here for those readers who have a vivid memory of the wild emotional stylings of Allen Jerkens, Jimmy’s legendary father, who could have set off a cardiac life vest hanging in the next room. Allen Jerkens stories fill the air during the Saratoga season, when the Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes is one of the key races of the meet, and Jimmy Jerkens is more often referred to as the great man’s son.

Still, with 21 years on his own as a public trainer, Jimmy Jerkens has established a enviable reputation of his own. Following the three best years of his career, Jerkens reached a personal high note in 2017 at the age of 59 with more than $5.5 million in stable earnings from just 189 starts.

Holy Helena and Shaman Ghost, both owned by Frank Stronach, led the 2017 Jerkens attack. The filly won the Queen’s Plate and the Woodbine Oaks, while Shaman Ghost took the Santa Anita Handicap and the Pimlico Special, and landed a healthy payday by finishing second to Arrogate in the Pegasus World Cup.

Securitiz, Unified, and Secretary at War also contributed stakes wins to the Jerkens cause last year, as did Five Star Rampage, who was sent up the road to Finger Lakes and came home with the trophy for the Jack Betta Be Rite Stakes. Holy Helena came back this year to win graded grass stakes at Gulfstream Park and Belmont, and two days before Jerkens entered the hospital, Delta Prince took the King Edward Stakes at Woodbine.

Jerkens is not involved in Saturday’s Whitney Stakes – Shaman Ghost was retired at the end of 2017 – but the race always reminds him of that momentous afternoon 45 years ago when his father shocked Triple Crown winner Secretariat with the unheralded Onion.

“I was on the backstretch with my brother Steve at about the three-quarter pole,” said Jerkens, 14 at the time. “So we had a good view as they turned down the backside.”

At that point Onion was cruising on the lead under Jacinto Vasquez, with Secretariat and Ron Turcotte down on the inside, dueling for second with West Coast Scout. After that, the view for the Jerkens boys was spotty.

“What I remember best is them going behind the tote board at about the eighth pole and Onion was a half a length in front,” Jerkens said. “Then when they came out from behind the tote board, he was the same half a length in front, with only a few more yards to go to the wire. It was unbelievable.”

Allen Jerkens and Onion returned to the barn in Clare Court a short while later, and all hailed the conquering heroes.

“My dad was still on cloud nine,” Jerkens said. “And I’ll never forget – afterwards we had our regular touch football game, and the groom who was trying to do up Onion outside kept yelling at us because the horse wouldn’t hold still for all the noise we were making.”

Such moments are good for the heart, and the effects last a long time. Jerkens can draw on a personal history that supplies strength and inspiration as he recovers.”

“It’s been kind of a rough month with all the medication, and being nervous about every little flutter you feel,” Jerkens said. “I’m a whole lot smarter now, and I’ll be doing less of everything.”

Everything, except winning.