At 5-foot-9, Kyle Kaenel is a giant in the
jockey world — but his heart is even bigger. Seventeen-year-old Kaenel has returned to the
saddle after breaking his neck in a horrific fall in Phoenix in
April that threatened to end his career less than a year after it
began. Doctors expected that it would be a year before Kaenel would
be able to ride again. But Kaenel rehabbed in half that time,
making his debut at Hawthorne Race Course in Chicago on Sept. 23
and bringing home his first winner nine days later. He’s ridden as many as five races in a
day and is still looking for the same kind of winning groove he had
in Arizona, where he was the 13th most winning jockey in the nation
when his mount took a sudden turn left and somersaulted over the
rail [see Rushton, “The son also rises,” May 5]. “I’m just trying to be as
successful as possible, get the dust off, and get back to where I
was before — and improve on it,” says Kaenel, who lives
in Pinckneyville when he isn’t trying to make his mark in
Thoroughbred racing. “It wasn’t as hard getting back in
the saddle as it was staying out of the saddle.”
He admits to being a bit nervous in his first
race but says that the accident is behind him. He’s under
pressure to ride well. As a rookie jock (or “bug boy,”
as they’re called in the racing world) who rode his first
race in September 2004, Kaenel rides with 5 fewer pounds aboard his
mounts than more experienced competitors do. It’s a break
designed to encourage trainers to use young jockeys who need
experience. In March, the weight advantage will disappear, so
Kaenel must quickly prove that he can compete on an even basis.
“It’s tough because my bug’s running, so I have
to build up business,” he says. Lindy McDaniel, Kaenel’s agent, says
that his client’s relatively slow start is product of bad
luck and mounts that prefer turf to dirt tracks. The only
noticeable aftereffect of the accident is the apparent difficulty
Kaenel has in moving his head around, McDaniel says, but that
hasn’t affected his riding. “I think it’s in his
head more than anything,” McDaniel says. “He was in
that halo [brace] for three months.”
Two things about Kaenel stand out, McDaniel says: his height and his patience as a
rider. Whereas many rookie riders go too fast too soon and wear their
horses out, he says, Kaenel knows how to hang back and pick his spots. Kaenel’s last name alone turns heads.
He’s the son of “Cowboy” Jack Kaenel, who was 16
when he won the 1982 Preakness Stakes and remains the youngest
jockey ever to win a Triple Crown race. Though his name grabs
attention from railbirds, the younger Kaenel has succeeded on his
own. His father, whose career ended prematurely as a result of
alcohol problems, was away from home much of the time when Kyle was
growing up. Not content with success at Turf Paradise in
Phoenix, which is considered a second-tier track, Kaenel was just
getting ready to move his tack from Arizona to Illinois when he was
injured. The ponies are faster and the competition more intense in
Chicago than in Phoenix, where Kaenel won 21 percent of his races
and finished in the money more than half of the time. Considering his height and age, weight gain
was a big concern for Kaenel during his time away from the track.
But he says he’s lighter now at 110 pounds than he was when
he was riding in Phoenix and worrying constantly about his weight.
Kaenel says he didn’t think about gaining weight when he was
injured, and that helped. “If you’re not worrying about
it and you’re not fighting it and you’re not stressing,
it’s easier,” he says. Kaenel has one less thing to worry about now
that he’s in Chicago: school. “I got my GED,” he says.
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2005.
