Ron Franklin

Ronald Franklin (December 20, 1959 – March 8, 2018) was an American jockey. At the age of only nineteen, he rode the champion racehorse Spectacular Bid to win the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. the coach would insert him into the line-up, hoping to draw a base on balls.

Career On February 4, 1978, Franklin won the first race he rode in. He was aboard a horse called Pioneer Patty at Bowie Race Track in Maryland.

In 1979, at the age of 19, Franklin rode the champion horse Spectacular Bid to win the Kentucky Derby, the colt's 11th consecutive win. Two weeks later, Franklin and Spectacular Bid won the Preakness Stakes and became the favorite to win the Triple Crown.

However, things were not going so well for Franklin, as his temper was coming back, something that had been a problem since his childhood. On May 22, three days after the Preakness, he was fined $100 for whipping a horse called Big Vision on the head and kicking him in the belly after coming fifth in a race at Pimlico. Richard Delp, Bud Delp's brother, came to Franklin's defense. “I didn’t see the incident, but I know that the horse gave Ronnie a rough trip the whole race. Ronnie was real mad, he just lost his temper. I never knew him to be that way with any horse before," he said. For a person who loved horses so much, it seemed out of character for Franklin to abuse one. “I’m sorry I hit him with the whip. I know I did wrong," he later apologized.

Two weeks after the Preakness Stakes, Franklin and Spectacular Bid were off to the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in New York. However, the cause of Spectacular Bid's loss was actually a safety pin he had stepped on in the days before the race, which hurt his hoof.

After the Belmont Stakes, Franklin was taken off Spectacular Bid and replaced by Hall of Fame jockey Bill Shoemaker. Things went downhill quickly for Franklin after that. Only nine days after the Belmont Stakes, he was arrested for possession of cocaine outside of Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

Death Franklin died of lung cancer in Baltimore on March 8, 2018, at the age of 58.