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Sassy
and savvy
Anna Rosie Napravnik has 221 victories in 51 weeks,
making her the fifth-winningest jockey in the
country this year — and she can’t even
legally drink a beer to celebrate.
With flaming red hair and a sassy attitude, the
18-year-old apprentice sensation is the talk of the
industry after winning the riding title at Laurel
Park in the spring and leading the roster now at
Pimlico.
Sitting in the women’s jockey room at
Pimlico on a recent afternoon, Napravnik looks like
the typical teenager. She fiddles with the
sunglasses perched on her head and checks for
missed calls on her pink cell phone, which is
clipped to the waistband of tight blue jeans.
Platform wedge sandals show off her pink-painted
toenails.
But Napravnik is the first to admit she’s
not typical.
“Not at all,” she says. “But I
don’t think I’m the typical high school
dropout, either. ”
The decision to leave school after two years at
Hereford High was a tough one, but Napravnik says
it wasn’t regrettable; she’ll take her
high school equivalency test in July. Her version
of the real world includes a lot of attention and
money — her earnings total more than $4
million and she’s looking for a house to buy
— but she’s sometimes lonely.
“I didn’t have any friends in
Hereford,” she says. “I was too tired and
grumpy for friends.”
Now with a serious boyfriend, she said she
spends even her off time with friends from the
track, talking about the track. But even that time
is limited: On busy days, she races as many as nine
times before returning to her Laurel apartment,
eating dinner and heading to bed.
The Laurel race season spans January through
April and, at Pimlico, April through July. In the
summer, she works the Timonium Fair circuit and a
summer meeting at Pimlico in August. On off days,
she travels to Delaware Park to race.
“I don’t have a lot of time to spend
doing nothing,” she said. “It’s very
tiring.”
The Homestretch
With a brother named Colt, horses must run in
Napravnik’s family.
Charles Napravnik said Colt was his only child
who didn’t get interested in the horses on the
family’s organic farm outside Asbury, N.J.
Rosie and her older sister, Jasmine, helped her
mother, who trained horses and managed a boarding
business. The family didn’t have a television
— too much junk on it, Charles says — so
horses kept the girls busy.
“After school, they went to the barn,”
he said. “They did pony club, horse shows.
There wasn’t time for much else.”
When Napravnik was 15, she took a year off from
horses to try her hand at just being a
teenager.
“I was sick of it,” she said. “I
decided I wanted to have nothing to do with horses
for a year.”
When Napravnik’s parents divorced two
summers ago, Rosie, 16 at the time, moved to
northern Baltimore County to live with Jasmine, who
was assisting local trainer Holly Robinson. Rosie
began helping Jasmine, 23, and Robinson, heading to
the barns at 4 a.m. while balancing schoolwork at
Hereford.
After her junior year ended last June, Napravnik
decided she was ready to race professionally and
mounted Ringofdiamonds for her first start.
She won.
In Laurel Park’s winter meet, she won 99
races in 72 days, earning $1.6 million —
$600,000 more than her nearest competitor.
Despite her instant success, two agents turned
Napravnik down before Pimlico trainer Richard Small
introduced her to John Faltynski. She says they
just saw her as another girl jockey who wanted to
ride with the boys.
But Faltynski, a longtime agent, marked his turf
as an industry legend when he took on Julie Krone,
who became the only woman to ride a winner of a
Triple Crown race (Colonial Affair in the 1993
Belmont) and retired as the all-time winningest
female jockey with 3,545 victories.
Faltynski, 52, takes girls seriously.
“I just looked at
[Napravnik’s] physique and saw how
pretty she is, and I knew she would be so
sellable,” Faltynski said. “It was a
match made in heaven.”
Though Faltynski acknowledges Napravnik gets
feisty at times — after a brief losing streak
one recent afternoon, she grumbled about the
presence of several reporters clamoring for her
photograph — he insists she’s a
“pleasure” to work with.
And while some jockeys work out wrapped in
plastic on hot summer days, Napravnik says she
maintains her 108-pound frame by working out on the
horses. Some nights, Faltynski said, she tells him
she’s too exhausted after racing to work other
horses, but she will be in before the sun is up the
next morning.
Faltynski credits Napravnik’s success to
that dedication and sheer love for horses.
“She gives me my space, and I give her
hers,” he said. “I’m a fan, totally
a fan. I can’t believe I get to work with a
kid like this.”
Blinkers On
On a recent day, Faltynski said seven owners
listed Napravnik to ride their horse in the same
race.
Napravnik jokes that she pays Faltynski
“the big bucks” to choose which horse she
rides in each race, evaluating past mounts,
temperaments and odds. Choosing which horse to put
his client on is what Faltynski called the toughest
part of his job.
“You hurt people’s feelings every
day,” he said. “One owner is going to be
elated — because that one’s going to the
winner’s circle.”
Napravnik, meanwhile, is slowly learning to
adjust to life in the spotlight. She’s
developing a keen sense of image — she hides a
box of cookies in her locker — and smart
business sense.
In an interview with The Examiner, Napravnik
chooses her words carefully and is cautious not to
divulge too much about her personal life.
“I don’t think it’s smart for
business,” she says. “The longer I stay
around, the better I can establish myself and get
my name out there. Every decision you make impacts
your career.”
Meanwhile, she just keeps winning.
In March, she won the Private Terms Stakes on a
horse with 74-1 odds. On Preakness Day, she won the
Grey Goose turf race, which came with a $100,000
purse. This season at Pimlico, she captured 56
wins, more than double that of her closest
competitor.
So what’s next for the young star?
“The sky’s the limit,” Napravnik
said. “I just want to keep this up.”
Source: E-Mail
or www.examiner.com/a-133097~Sassy_and_savvy.html
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