The best known national figure from the famed Pacific northwest racing family, Russell Baze’s riding career began in earnest when he was 15 at Walla Walla. He won his first race the following year at Yakima Meadows in 1974. Later that year he was leading apprentice at Longacres and Baze would hang his tack at the Renton track for four more years (1975-79). The numbers Baze has recorded since that time are absolutely astounding. He has won 400 or more races in 11 of the last 12 years – only failing to reach the 400 win plateau in 1999 when injured for three months – yet still managed 373 winning rides. As a means of comparison, no other rider in history has won over 400 races for more than two consecutive years. That streak was considered so fantastic that in the middle of the eight year run (1996), Baze was presented a Special Eclipse Award. Just as remarkable is the fact that Baze has won the Isaac Murphy Award, a national honor given annually to the jockey with the highest win percentage, every year since the award’s inception in 1995. He was also awarded the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award by his peers in 2002. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Baze racked up most of these wins in northern California where he has captured 27 consecutive riding titles at Bay Meadows and had a streak of 24 consecutive riding titles at Golden Gate Fields, until it was broken (again due to injury) this past spring. He is the fourth leading rider of all time with over 8,600 wins, trailing only Laffit Pincay, Jr., Bill Shoemaker and Pat Day. If he stays healthy, Baze should surpass Day first, then Shoemaker next year and Pincay in 2006. Baze has ridden three Longacres Mile-G3 winners: Simply Majestic in 1988, Sky Jack in 2003 and was victorious in the ’04 edition last month with Adreamisborn.
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