Injuries force retirement of jockey Scott Stevens

PHOENIX – Jockey Scott Stevens is reportedly retiring after suffering significant injuries in a recent spill at Turf Paradise. The news was announced Wednesday via Twitter by Stevens’s younger brother, Hall of Fame rider Gary Stevens.

Scott Stevens, 60, was involved in a spill at the Phoenix track Feb. 24. He came out of that race with a fractured vertebrae as well as other minor injuries. Gary Stevens said in the tweet that Scott had feeling in his extremities and there was no sign of paralysis, but that he will “never ride competitively again.”

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Stevens began his career at Le Bois Park in Idaho where he rode his first winner in 1976 at age 16. He reached the 5,000-win milestone at Turf Paradise in March 2020. Stevens won numerous riding titles at Turf Paradise, was inducted into the Canterbury Downs Hall of Fame, and was awarded the George Woolf Award at Santa Anita in 2019.

He suffered numerous injuries throughout his career, the most serious likely coming at Canterbury Downs in 2010 which almost proved fatal. In that spill he fractured all his ribs and had both lungs collapse. He managed to come back from that to ride well for another decade.

He retires with 5,049 wins from 33,447 mounts for earnings of over $43 million, according to Equibase. He’s one of just 35 riders in North American to win over 5,000 races.