Sam Waley-Cohen, jockey (Photo by David Davies/PA Images via Getty Images via JTA)
(JTA) – The odds are long that David Cohen can become the first Jewish jockey to win a Kentucky Derby.
Cohen’s horse, Keepmeinmind, is a 50-1 shot in the early line for Saturday’s Triple Crown race at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
But don’t bet against the 36-year-old rider, who has won some 1,560 races and earned nearly $60 million in a career that launched in 2004: His is a story of comeback, from physical injury and mental anguish.
An Arkansas rabbi helped along the way.
Cohen was raised in the horse racing industry: His father was a highly regarded owner and breeder in California, where Cohen was born and raised and had his bar mitzvah. He was enjoying a promising career, moving east to win jockey titles at then-Philadelphia Park and Delaware Park in the mid-2000s.