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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Success uncovers checkered past

New York Daily News

BALTIMORE — Their relationship goes back more than 20 years. It’s a friendship that includes those traditionally manly pursuits of hunting and fishing. It’s a professional partnership that has taken them from the big-fish-in-a-small-pond atmosphere of Philadelphia Park to life-altering national acclaim for winning a Kentucky Derby.

The ties that bind trainer John Servis and jockey Stewart Elliott have survived even some of the uglier patches in the rider’s life.

Those loyalties came to light in the days following Elliott’s win aboard Smarty Jones in the Derby two weeks ago, and intensified in the days leading up to today’s 129th Preakness.

Smarty Jones, the unbeaten Pennsylvania-bred, will try to become the sixth horse in the past eight years to win the first two-thirds of racing’s Triple Crown. He’ll be challenged by a field of nine fellow 3-year-olds this afternoon at Pimlico Race Course.

“I think he knew it was coming,” Servis said. “He knows it was in his past. He knew the more successful he got, the more it was going to get dug up. He was more than prepared for it.”

“It” turned out to be several incidents involving violent behavior by Elliott, including a September 2001 guilty plea for assaulting a New Jersey man with a pool cue, beer bottle and wooden stool.

A Jersey newspaper also revealed that Elliott pleaded guilty to two charges involving disorderly behavior and paid $1,000 in fines in July 2001 for arrests stemming from altercations with a former girlfriend.

On his application for a license to ride in Kentucky, Elliott answered “no” to the question about whether he had ever been arrested, indicted or convicted, or pleaded guilty to any criminal offense within the last 10 years. Kentucky horse-racing officials fined him $1,000 Thursday for submitting an inaccurate application.

Elliott admitted this week to battling alcoholism, which he says led to his bad behavior.

“That was all of it, because of (a drinking problem). The people I was with, they were the same,” Elliott said Saturday.

Elliott entered a rehab program in the fall of 2000 after two arrests, and said this October will mark four years of sobriety.