Originally posted on 12/09/2023:

I received some tragic news yesterday. Although it happened 6 years ago, I was stunned. I had no idea.

John , JK, Adams, died in August of 2017 in Oceanport New Jersey. John was the grandson of Hall Of Fame jockey Johnny Adams.

John was a steady rider in Md. From 1977 to about, I guess 1980? Statistics says he rode until 2005. Wow. I had no idea. Here is why.

Just not sure when exactly, but John was involved in a terrible spill at Bowie ( I can still see the helicopter landing at the 3/8ths pole)
sometime around then. He darn near died. It was real close. I don't remember exactly what all was broken but John was kicked or stepped on in the head in that accident and it changed his life forever.

Helicopter's landing at sights of injuries was brand new then. I think it was the 1st time I had seen that. Johnny was near death for several days but pulled through , albeit with a traumatic brain injury. If memory serves, it took him a over a year to just come to the track for a visit. When he walked, his arms were out from his sides to help him stay balanced. When you talked to him, you could see in his eyes that his mind had finished the sentence but he could not speak as fast as he could think. His speech was slow and methodical. Everyone that knew him felt so bad for him.
After another year or maybe two, he wanted to try and ride again. For me, that was such a scary thought that I could not find it in me to be a part of that. At least not at first. I did eventually ride him on a mount or two, but that was it. Strictly out of respect for a super nice, kind, down to earth and classy guy, as every bone in my body from a business standpoint was saying to myself, are you out of your friggin mind!

Johnny abandoned any comeback try's soon afterwards and he became a jocks agent for some very ordinary riders. Don't even remember who. So yeah, I rode his rider on a couple of horses but again, just to support Johnny. I didn't want to ride him.

That went away soon enough as well and I do not remember how much longer John was around but eventually, after the jock agent thing that he tried ran it's course, I saw less and less of him. Shortly thereafter I lost touch with him altogether.
Pretty sad story but it doesn't end there although I just found out the rest of it.


Apparently, John moved down south and as I understand it, started working on a farm that broke babies and prepped horses for the sales. At some point he started riding races again, but I was unaware of that.
I never saw Johnny again but I knew he was ok somewhere. You would hear his name every now and then. In time, I guess that faded as well.

So fast forward to about 2013 or so and apparently, JK rode a van up from Florida with some horses going to Monmouth Park. Those horses stabled there for the summer and Johnny was with them. Story from there has it that Johnny , I think , stayed at Monmouth and became a hot walker, I guess year around. I did not know they stayed open all year but I am assuming Monmouth does? It's unclear to me. So fast forward again about 3-4 years and Johnny has become a 62 year old hot walker, living on the backside, that was getting and staying drunk apparently all the time. He was a total mess. Story has it that Monmouth security was so sick of Johnny disturbing the peace or being drunk in public I guess, that someone made the decision to expel him from the grounds, which was leaving him out on the street with no money, nowhere to live and no job, and of course, drunk.

Had the jockey's guild or the Md. horseman's group gotten word of that, I cannot imagine that one if not both, although with the Stronach Group, from what I have seen maybe not so much , but certainly the Md. horseman's association who has former riders within it, would have stepped up immediately and taken Johnny in and gotten him some badly needed help. But to my knowledge I do not think anyone knew.( I will find out though. I will call a couple of old riders that still work within the game).

So shortly after being expelled from the grounds, Johnny apparently went to the reservoir which is next to the stable area and I suppose he made camp there for a day or two. Shortly after that, he was found face down floating in that reservoir where he had drown.

Six, yeah six years later I hear about this. Had not heard a word about it before the other day. I will inquire but for Gods sake, what the hell?

Monmouth Park, after hearing about this has made a rule that no person will be expelled from the grounds in that fashion again. They will be provided help to whatever level is necessary to help that person out.
That is a good thing but at a horrible price.

I feel terrible even days after hearing about Johnny. Nobody deserves that. Especially such a kind person that was dealt such a terrible hand. Rest In Peace my friend. I surely hope he does and is.

For EZ Rider, this is another story, albeit tragic, about the typical backstretch employee that has been at the track their entire life. As romantic a type setting as the racetrack can be at times with feel good stories, it has some real tough stories within it of backstretch employees such as this one, as well as Wally who I wrote about, and countless others.


So here we are, a couple of weeks before the holidays and what better time to pay some respect, make amends, or just be friendly to someone. Easy to say, right? But we should. I know I should. And I am going to do it not only for myself but for Johnny.

I will make an effort to do so and try and keep that around in my head all year. There are so many stories around about people that have had a real rough life, albeit self inflicted or like in John's case, just a terrible experience that eventually led to more and more tragedy. Whatever the case, sometimes just the littlest thing can make a difference to someone. I sure do wish I had known about Johnny. As do many of my friends I'm sure.

Maybe we just keep that in our minds for next time. I know I will.

Thanks for reading everyone.

Happy holidays to all of you.