When the TV series "Jockeys" ran on Animal Planet two years ago, senior University of Florida veterinary student Ramon Perez was quite the hot commodity with his classmates. That’s because for a three-year window in the 1990s, Perez himself was one of the biggest names in Thoroughbred horse racing. "My classmates usually ask me things like, 'What’s it like?' or 'What's this mean?'" said Perez, now 32 and preparing for an internship at an equine practice near Sydney, Australia. In 1995 alone, horses Perez rode raked in more than $4.6 million in purses, Perez often competing on the tough New York circuit. That year, at 18 years of age, Perez received the Eclipse Award for best apprentice jockey. Perez was associated with trainer Bill Mott's stable, and his stepfather, Tim Jones, was Mott's assistant trainer.

"We were tough to beat," said Perez of Mott's stable. "We had great horses; we won Breeders' Cups. Even as a kid, before I could ride, I had access to some of the most well-bred horses in the world."

Mott said that Perez did well from the very beginning. "He won a grade I stakes for us at Belmont when he still had the apprentice allowance, which was quite unusual," said the trainer. "But that just shows the confidence I had in him, and the confidence that he had in himself to win a race like that."

Perez won the first two races he ever rode. He raced and won at Churchill Downs, Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Saratoga Race Course