Tohill rides 4,000th winner

Ken Tohill rode his 4,000th winner Sunday when he piloted Rainbow Surebet to victory in the fourth race at Prairie Meadows.

Tohill, 59, is the 79th jockey to reach the 4,000-win milestone. Russell Baze is the all-time leader with 12,842 winners, more than 3,300 more than Laffit Pincay, who amassed the second-most career wins among North American jockeys. Perry Ouzts, with 7,257 winners, is the leading active jockey by wins.

Tohill, who had his first winner in 1979, rode with Baze in Northern California for many years, but also has hung his tack on the New Mexico circuit and at racecourses across the Midwest. Tohill’s father was a jockey, his mother a trainer, and he grew up in horseracing.

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“I didn’t have much choice,” he said in a March interview with Fonner Park publicity. “I was little, so it just happened.”

That was 4,000 winners and more than 40 years ago.