Jose Amy wants to resume riding career in New York 21 years after race-fixing implication

Cleared to return to New York racetracks for the first time in 21 years, 47-year-old jockey Jose Amy wakes up every morning at 4:30. He has a cup of coffee and heads to Aqueduct, where he hustles exercise mounts before leaving for his full-time job at a cigar store in Elmont, Long Island, near his home.

Amy hopes that the New York State Racing and Wagering Board will one day allow him to ride in races again in New York.

He said he is not chasing glory, just a second chance, more than two decades after his bright career was shattered when he acknowledged being a key player in one of the worst scandals in racing history. In exchange for immunity, Amy testified that, while under duress, he accepted a series of bribes in 1974 and '75 from former jockey Con Errico, who was subsequently convicted of race fixing. Amy also named other jockeys who were involved, only to later recant that testimony.

"I regret everything," Amy said. "I'm sorry, but I'm realistic. This happened. I made a mistake. I accepted my mistake. But I do believe I've paid my dues. We're talking about 21 years. Twenty-one years, man! If I had murdered somebody, I'd be out already. I deserved to be punished, but I never thought it was going to take 21 years."

Actually, it may take longer, if it happens at all. While the board granted him a license as an exercise rider on February 2, it had previously denied him a jockey's license in 1989, '90, and '91. Amy applied again for a jockey's license on February 18, 2000, and then, acting on advice from the board, withdrew it. He amended the application for an exercise rider's license, which he received. It was not what Amy wanted, but he focuses on the positive, the chance to ride in New York again even as an exercise rider.

"For me, it's a big step," he said. "It's like a dream come true."

Making the decision

Amy's dogged persistence to ride in races in New York again raises complex issues of justice, punishment, and rehabilitation.

Were Amy's acts so reprehensible that he should never be allowed a jockey's license in New York, or has he paid enough with his long banishment? Did Amy circumvent his punishment by riding for 15 years in his native Puerto Rico?

Should his clean record there, ostensibly showing that he has been rehabilitated, be a factor in his jockey license application in New York? If drug-abusing, professional athletes, including jockeys, are routinely given second and third chances, should Amy? Does his limited window of opportunity as a jockey at the age of 47 matter?

Though Amy was not convicted of any crime, his license was permanently revoked in 1980. Two years later, he returned to Puerto Rico and began riding there in 1984. He returned to New York last year to reapply for a jockey's license.

"Something just hit me," Amy said. "It was the right time."

Maybe his decision resulted from the fact that his two daughters, to whom he remains close, have become adults. Both are now in college pursuing nursing careers.

Maybe it was because Amy was ready to confront his past.

"There's a big difference when you learn from a mistake and when you don't learn," he said. "When you make a mistake, it's an experience in your life that you can learn from. I have nothing to hide. The only thing I want you to do is respect me for overcoming that mistake in my life."

In his mind, Amy can only overcome that mistake by riding in a race in New York again, and that decision is not his to make.

"It always is difficult in these cases," said Michael Hoblock, Racing and Wagering Board chairman. "You don't sit there with a clipboard and check off 20 items. You have to get a sense of him from a number of sources and factors. I think what you look for in anyone coming back is remorse, and that there's been rehabilitation."

Rehabilitation is more easily documented with drug offenders. Amy's situation is entirely different. "It's very difficult to measure," Hoblock said. "Whether Jose Amy will ever be licensed by this board I can't honestly say. Jose was never convicted. A conviction would weigh heavily on this board."

Since Amy was not convicted, he has a chance of receiving a jockey's license in the future. "I think it's up to him," Hoblock said. "We have an individual who, after 21 years, has come back and asked us for another chance. We've given him another chance as an exercise rider. Let's see what happens one year from now."

A jockey's rise and fall

Amy's life seemed much simpler prior to 1979.

Born in Santurce, he was one of four children of Frank Amy, who worked as a postman and as a croupier in a casino before his death in 1982. "He worked two jobs, day and night," Amy said. "He was involved in racing, too, as a clerk of scales. We used to have a couple horses I used to ride. I always liked horses since I was a kid. Everybody in my family is a sports freak."

Amy was talented in two of them: basketball and horse racing. Success in both is a tough exacta to complete for someone who is five feet, four inches tall. "My height didn't help me," Amy said of basketball.

Racing became his priority. Amy started working in a stable cleaning saddles, then graduated to groom. In 1970, he was in the initial class of a jockey school in Puerto Rico. He graduated, received his license in 1972, and quickly established himself as the leading apprentice at El Comandante. "I rode five or six months and I came to the States," he said. "I tried to make it in the big leagues."

He did. Amy started at Hialeah Park in February 1973 and quickly moved to New York, where he won the 1974 Queens County Handicap on Free Hand. He rode Due Diligence to win the 1976 Carter Handicap and won the 1978 Seneca Handicap on Tom Swift. That winter, he was the third leading rider at Aqueduct on the way to a breakthrough season in 1979 with 150 victories and more than $2.6-million in purses. But his world was already unraveling.

In May 1979, Errico was convicted of fixing races five and six years earlier and sentenced to prison for ten years and fined $25,000. The key witness for the prosecution was Amy, who acknowledged that he accepted bribes from Errico in seven races at Aqueduct and Saratoga Race Course from March 5, 1974, through March 24, 1975.

According to the second series of the "Federal Reporter," which catalogs federal cases, Errico approached Amy in the locker room at Aqueduct in December 1973 and offered him a bribe for that afternoon's ninth race, then the only race that allowed trifecta wagering. Amy refused. Errico approached Amy again several days later, and the jockey refused again.

The "Federal Reporter" described what happened next: "On March, 5, 1974, Errico tried a third time more aggressively. He told Amy that the other jockeys had agreed to hold horses and then threatened 'Mafia' retribution should Amy refuse him again. A frightened Amy agreed to hold his horse, and Errico gave him $1,500 in cash."

That was the start of Amy's ruin. He was 26 years old. "I was scared," he said now. "I didn't know what I was doing. I made a mistake. I was young." On May 13, 1980, Amy was gone, stripped of his jockey's license permanently. One of his last winning stakes rides was on Degenerate Jon in the 1980 Count Fleet Stakes at Aqueduct. Degenerate Jon was owned by Barry Schwartz, now CEO and chairman of the board of New York Racing Association (NYRA).

Amy was understandably devastated. "I don't wish a dog to go through what I went through," he said. "I didn't know if I was living or not living. It was horrible, horrible. When something happens to you, all your relatives suffer. It was hard for me. It was hard for my family. It was hard for my friends."

He found solace in his family. "They threw my life away, but they gave me two beautiful daughters," Amy said.

"I saw them both being born. On December 29, 1980, Denise, my older one, was born. That really helped me. I wasn't working anywhere. I didn't have anything else to do. On April 11, 1982, my second daughter, Desiree, was born. We have a beautiful relationship. I am their best friends."

Picking up the pieces

Amy returned with his family to Puerto Rico and went about getting a jockey's license there. "I didn't have another choice," he said. "I wanted to get a license somewhere because that's all I know: How to ride horses."

He was granted a license there in 1984 and resumed his career with a single goal. "I always had my faith that some day I would be in New York," he said. "You know why? Because I believe I belong in New York professionally. I always believed in myself."

Following a divorce, which he describes as amicable, Amy returned to New York intent on getting back to where he once was. He solicited letters of support to be sent to the State Racing and Wagering Board. One, dated March 24, 2000, was from Jean A. Alves Rueda, a racing administrator of the Puerto Rico Thoroughbred Racing Administration, who credited Amy with "excellent conduct" while riding there. "For that matter, he is considered to be in good standing in our jurisdiction," Rueda wrote.

To optimize his chances of a successful return, Amy works out an hour daily, jogging four miles and doing sit-ups. "Physically, I'm fit to go," he said. "Without getting hurt, I've got ten years left in me. I'm confident."

But he is still not allowed to ride in a race, though he now has an exercise rider's license. NYRA issued Amy a temporary credential after he met with NYRA President Terry Meyocks, stewards Ted Hill and Dave Hicks, and NYRA's head of security, John Tierney. "It was 21 years," Meyocks said. "He served a long time." Schwartz agrees. "I'm really okay with him coming back to work," Schwartz said on February 29. "He's paid his dues."

Road to return

Would people remember Amy? And what if they did?

"So far, there is not one person I've seen that I got a negative reaction from," Amy said. "It was like, 'Welcome back.' Human beings, they have a lot of feelings. Whenever people know how hard it was on me, to overcome the past 20 years, people respect that. It doesn't matter who likes you and who doesn't like you. There's respect."

Trainer John Hertler did not recognize him. "He just showed up at the door," said Hertler, who began training on his own in New York in 1978. "I didn't recognize him."

Hertler did not turn Amy away when he asked to exercise horses for him. "He helps me in the morning," Hertler said. "He's a good horseman and he needed help. I needed help."

Hertler does not read anything more into it. "He's never said, 'You've got to ride me,' " Hertler said. "He just wants to get back in the saddle. This is step one, and it might not go any further. But he's fit. He's riding fit. He breezed a filly three-quarters for me and didn't come back exhausted. He shows up every morning, does his job, and leaves. He's a good work rider."

Another trainer, Steve Jerkens, is closer to Amy. "He was always a good friend of mine," Jerkens said. "Last year he came by and said what he was trying to do. We wrote letters for him and tried to get his license back. I don't know the particulars of what happened, but he was never in any trouble other than that. He raised two daughters. He works horses very well. I just think he should be given an opportunity."

Maybe he already has. Maybe the State Racing and Wagering Board will see his experience as an exercise rider and factor that into its decision when Amy reapplies for his jockey's license. And he will, forcing racing officials to wrestle with those weighty issues of crime and punishment.

"It's been 21 years," Amy said. "I'm rehabilitated. The only way I can prove it is to give me the chance, and my actions will tell you. Let them see what I do. Anyone deserves a second chance. Like I told the Racing Board, I won't need a third."