‘Why not?’: Mike Smith looks to set record at Kentucky Derby

‘Believing in our magic and in our essence’

The subject of “Money Mike” was easy enough to decide on.

It certainly fits with what Long Odds Production is seeking to showcase. Part of what the company filming, producing and editing the upcoming documentary wants to do is to help change the perception of New Mexico and its population that’s become more synonymous with the series “Breaking Bad” or seasons of the show “COPS” than world heritage sites, the place where the atomic bomb was developed or even its ties to aliens.

Elevate, however, might be the better term than change. At least to a larger audience.

“We have so much talent in New Mexico and we don’t even realize it sometimes,” says Charles Ashley III, one of the project’s executive producers. “This (project) shows Mike, (his) magic, his essence. That’s New Mexico. We have that. He brought something to our group that we believe we should be highlighting more in our state, which is believing in our magic and in our essence.”

All of it sounded great. In theory, it worked. Here was Smith, an accomplished, record-breaking figure, his story ready to be told to circles outside horse racing.

Convincing the man, well, that was another matter. That required a little bit of work and a quality pitch. Smith has had some approach him in the hopes of allowing them to write his biography. Others sought to persuade him with a documentary of their own. No was always the answer.

Smith’s wife, Cynthia, helped turn that one-time hardline in the other direction. So did Josh Melendez, another executive producer of “Money Mike.” He also happens to be Smith’s cousin.

Melendez initially wanted to approach Smith about doing a documentary before 2020. He grew up watching Smith’s races, huddled with other family members inside his grandmother’s trailer in Midway, south of Roswell, crowded around a small TV. A different crew would have been involved then, but the project never got past the idea phase. It had starts and then stops and then fizzled. In a way, Melendez is glad it did.

“Because this is the right time,” Melendez says. “This is the right team. This is the right moment.”

And that’s the key. This moment. In a career that’s spanned four decades, picking and choosing which of Smith’s accomplishments to focus on would have been a herculean task. Instead, the production team made a conscientious decision to look forward with Smith rather than behind. Yes, the documentary will provide historical context to Smith’s upbringing and career, but it’s aiming to be a little more.

“We wanted to track him as he pursues his next great victory,” says Rah Johnson, the film’s director. “And he’s entirely capable of winning the Kentucky Derby. He’s on a great horse. … This is someone who is as good as he was 30 years ago, the difference now is he has decades worth of experience in high-stakes horse racing. That’s why we thought it was such an exceptional story and was worth pursuing. Mike is always a contender.”

Which circles back to the question: Why now? Really, it became, why not?

“They pitched it to me the right way and made me feel good about it,” Smith says. “I’m at the end of my career and it’s getting time. If I’m gonna let somebody do it, I’d rather it be my family and some people who really sold me on it and are doing a great job, and are putting a lot of time and effort into it.”

So, there might be a little bit of pressure to get this thing right, right?

“I’ve told people, they won’t have to face my Aunt Vidoll (Daniel), Mike’s mom. I’m the one who has to see the family during the holidays,” Melendez says with a laugh. “My family will let me know if it’s good or bad. There is a pressure to it.

“For Mike, for myself, the family is the community and this represents the family. It doesn’t just represent Mike and he’s the focus and the priority. Everyone is going to feel like this is a part of them because it is.”

‘Everything just fell into place’

If there have been two constants in Smith’s life, both are easy to pinpoint.

Family was the first.

Born in Dexter, a town “in the middle of nowhere” with a population of a little more than 1,000 people 30 minutes south of Roswell, one of the places known for UFOs, in 1965, Smith’s childhood was filled with familiar faces and just enough. Along with his mother, Smith was raised by Daniel’s eight sisters and his grandparents alongside a plethora of cousins and younger brother Ray.

“It always takes a village,” Daniel says.

A large one never hurts. It helped keep Smith grounded and at the same time allowed him to develop a toughness to go along with his polite and calm demeanor. That was until something got competitive. Man, did he hate to lose.

That leads to the second constant. Horses, naturally, were the other.

“From the day he could crawl,” Daniel says. “He went from a stick horse to a rocking horse to a Shetland pony to a quarter horse. It’s something he was always interested in.”

It quickly became something that nearly bordered on an obsession. A healthy one, at least. He had the means and the opportunity right in his backyard.

Smith spent most of his youth on the horse farm belonging to B.R. and Rose Vallejos, his paternal grandparents. By the time he was 8, Smith began helping his uncle Thomas break horses. In school, Smith spent the day staring out the windows. He dreaded being stuck inside. There was a certain freedom and thrill that came with being outdoors and around horses. Injuries? No problem if they didn’t interfere with riding, like the time Smith cut away part of his arm cast so he could grip the reins.

“It kind of became ingrained in me,” Smith says, “and everything just kind of fell into place.”

Well, maybe not all that smoothly, even if the plan seemed rather simple.

Smith was determined to make a career being around horses. He was the right size: 5-foot-4. He had some experience. The passion was there. He just needed to persuade his mother to allow him to drop out of school when he was 15 years old and fudge his age to be a year older to secure a jockeying license in Santa Fe. So, he did what any sensible teenager would do. He enlisted the aid of family, specifically his uncle. It worked.

“I just hesitated all the way there,” Daniel says. “But that’s what he wanted to do, so I thought, ‘Well, OK.’”

And while Daniel might have said yes, she still did what any mother would do. She worried. Being a professional jockey could be such a volatile career. What kind of living would her son be able to make?

That could get figured out. There was no second-guessing for Smith. There was no need to look back, either. It became a career, although he’s never truly defined it as work or a job, that has moved him across the country and across other continents. The victories weren’t far behind.

Smith won his first professional race in 1982 and his first Triple Crown event in the 1993 Preakness. Among his 5,800 career victories, 233 have been Grade I stakes — the top-tier events — 27 of which have come in the Breeders’ Cup with two more in the Kentucky Derby (2005 and ’18), two others in the Preakness (’93 and ’18) and three via the Belmont Stakes (2010, ’13 and ’18). The 233 is also the most all time.

The 2018 season might have been Smith’s banner year. He became the oldest jockey at 52 to win the Triple Crown partnered with Justify. The pair won the Kentucky Derby by 2 1/2 lengths, the Preakness by 1/2 and Belmont by 1 3/4. It came 15 years after he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Smith’s most recent Grade I stakes? That came in this year’s Santa Anita Derby the first week of April. It’s a positive sign. Since 1991, the horse that has finished first in Santa Anita has won the Kentucky Derby eight times.

“It’s the cliche rags to riches,” Melendez said. “But it’s also so much more because Mike is so much more.”

‘We’ll go where the story takes us’

That’s the other part of this documentary project. Yes, there’s the pursuit of history. There’s also the man behind it and the reasons for doing what he’s attempting to do. Why he’s putting his body through five days of running and workouts. Why he’s still in love with a challenge. Why he’s willing to put up with the lows just as much as the highs.

That perspective is just as important in all this.

“Hopefully by the end of this,” Johnson says, “it’ll give some insight to viewers of not only what (the jockeys) watch, but what they go through and how they prepare their minds to do these incredible things. … This is a story that’s meant to be told.”

So for all the hours Smith has put in, Long Odds Production has been keen to log what feels like just as many. It’s very much turned into a labor of love in a way.

Filming started last October and hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. There’s been adjustments made and audibles called both as Smith’s season has unfolded and a deeper knowledge of what to look for has been attained.

Race days usually mean a 5:30 a.m. arrival at the track. It’s when the lighting tends to be at its best and the scene is at its most quiet. By the time the crowds are let in, chaos ensues. It starts to feel like an anthill with everyone scurrying this way and that. There’s horses to follow to the gate and the right positions to be manned for the races. It involves a lot of running, particularly along hallways that aren’t specifically meant for a film crew. Communication and coordination are musts.

“As somebody viewing these races, you can feel the pressure and then after, you can feel the pressure subside,” Johnson says. “That’s when you can enjoy the incredible imagery that you’ve captured because that’s what this is, capturing those moments. Thankfully, we’ve been to enough races now to where we kind of got the particulars down.”

The interviews tend to be the easier part. At least once lined up. There seems to be no shortage of those willing to talk about Smith, whether they are contemporaries, trainers or owners. Even some of his mentors. The crew made sure to talk to Laffit Pincay Jr., the Panamanian who ranks third all-time in North American wins with 9,530 and the jockey who took first in the 1984 Kentucky Derby, Smith’s maiden entry into the event.

All of it is critical, if not for the viewing audience, then at least to Smith.

“I think how people think of you matters to everyone,” Smith says. “If you say, ‘I don’t care,’ I just think you’re kind of saying that. They might have the wrong idea of you and that’s the difference. But you want — and I want — to be known as a good person, an honest person.”

Long Odds Production is eager to make that come through. A release date hasn’t been set, although the company is targeting sometime next year.

Moreso, there’s the matter of the ending and what it will look like. Saturday’s Kentucky Derby will play a large role in that. But so will the Preakness and Belmont, too. The Breeders’ Cup World Championships wrap at the end of October. So much can happen between now and then.

“You can’t predict what the end goal is,” Johnson says. “You just have to let this story kind of unfold and document the moment. When we get done filming, we’ll see what we have and we’ll go where the story takes us.”

‘It wasn’t just the winning that made you feel good’

While predicting the end goal is rather difficult, hoping for a certain outcome is entirely different.

The “Money Mike” crew knows what would be the perfect ending. So does Smith’s family. Even the jockey himself would be remiss to argue against a Kentucky Derby win.

“I’m just excited about doing it,” Smith says. “Hopefully, all of New Mexico gets behind me and helps me cross that wire first.”

It’s a modest request. There’s some confidence there, too. All one has to do is ask about So Happy. That might lend itself to the why. Just be prepared for the full version.

“By winning the Santa Anita Derby, that got him into the Kentucky Derby,” Smith says. “But it wasn’t just winning it that made you feel good about it. It’s the fashion that he did it. He came out strong and he was strong at the end, not just on fumes, trying to hang on. He’s the kind of horse that’s just really getting good at the right time and peaking right when you need to.”

And there it is, that small feeling of magic Smith brings along with him when talking about horses. He can’t help it. Horse racing has been his life. Jockey and horse, after all, are tied together. Certainly for one more race.

So, how much time is left after that? Smith isn’t sure.

Right now, that’s a conversation that can wait. After all, retire and do what? The Kentucky Derby. So Happy. A chance at history. Those are what deserve his time and attention.

It remains the best part.

David Glovach covers New Mexico United and other sports for the Journal. Reach him at dglovach@abqjournal.com or via X @DavidGlovach.