Chris Antley's death focuses attention on how the sport responds to drug and alcohol problems

Chris Antley was always the golden child.

After his apprenticeship in Maryland in 1983, Antley gained renown in New Jersey but generally spent his winters in Pennsylvania at Keystone Race Track, now Philadelphia Park.

Although not the best jockey there, he was one of the most popular. Antley was polite, personable, upbeat, intelligent, and talented.

No different from other racetracks at the time, Keystone was a place where some good young people became entangled with bad stuff. An indelible memory is a track valet carrying two cases of beer to the jockey's room before the races.

Illegal drugs were present as well. The mother of a jockey lamented years later that another rider had introduced her son to cocaine. He left the track and found recovery, as did others. With intervention and a solid, structured, lifelong recovery program, cocaine addiction need not end in a pool of blood.

But Antley's life ended that way. Whether his addiction was a direct cause of his death is not known now, but living in an illegal-drug culture often puts people in contact with individuals with bad intentions.

Antley died away from the racetrack, in his Pasadena, California, home, nine months after his sudden and totally unexpected retirement. Racing mourned a talented former participant who will always be remembered for cradling Charismatic's injured leg after the finish of the 1999 Belmont Stakes (G1).

People said it was a shame what had happened to Antley after he left the track. But what happened to Antley flowed irreversibly from the racetrack. He developed his addiction while a young rider, he entered rehabilitation under supervision of racing authorities, and he relapsed at the track.

Nor can racing distance itself from the lost lives of grooms, hotwalkers, mutuel clerks, or any others who develop addictions while working at the racetrack. But, as it has been noted before, the industry does a poor job of caring for racetrackers who become sick-with an addiction-on the job.

Racing and the sports media can be enablers. A trainer may overlook the behavior of a groom because help of any kind is hard to find. Or racing regulators give a fallen talent too many chances when what that individual needs is tough love.

In retrospect, we of the media failed to ask Antley the tough questions after his victory aboard Charismatic in the 1999 Kentucky Derby (G1). Without tough questions, it is all too easy for the recovering addict to fall into a dangerous self-deception: "I'm cured!" Sadly, addictions have no cures.

Before anyone writes off Antley as "weak" or as someone who failed to take "personal responsibility," it should be recognized that addictions are very powerful and deadly antagonists. Dominick Bologna, the New York Racing and Wagering Board official who supervised Antley's rehabilitation there, wrote poignantly after the jockey's death.

"I can attest that Chris went to war with his personal demon and gave it his best," the former New York City policeman wrote. "Although his best generally won out in all other aspects of his life, this demon was something else. That is not to say that Chris did not win any battles. But winning battles against this demon is not winning the war. Those of us who understand know that this is an unending war."

An unending war can be fought only with unending vigilance. John Giovanni, national manager of the Jockeys' Guild, has suggested in the past a program of tough love that can be paraphrased as "three strikes and you're out." The first strike would result in evaluation and, if necessary, meaningful rehabilitation.

A second positive would trigger a six-month suspension and structured rehabilitation. A third positive would result in a permanent ban. Giovanni's thoughts require serious consideration-for all racing participants.

Racing, which is pressing forward with a national licensing program, also should advance a national "passport" program under which recovering alcoholics and drug addicts would be passed from one track's rehabilitation program to another. All too often, an offender crosses a state line and has a clean slate.

An industrywide policy on substance-abuse rehabilitation and a program to track recovering racetrackers would be an appropriate memorial to Chris Antley.