Joe Rocco Sr. knows his way around every racetrack up and down the
East Coast, but he is having a tough time finding the winner's circle at
Suffolk Downs.
A journeyman jockey, Rocco has been on the racetrack since the
mid-1970s, when his father pulled him out of school at 16 to work in
Allen Jerkens's barn at Belmont Park. Now 51 and fighting back from the
latest in a laundry list of injuries, he has moved his tack to the sole
surviving Thoroughbred track in New England, resolved to resurrect his
career, even if it means riding cheap claimers in short fields for
bottom-of-the-barrel purses.
"It's been slow. I've only won two races," he said. "I'm not riding
the quality of horses that I thought I would. I was hoping to get in
with the top outfits, but it's hard working your way in."
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