Rob Dyrdek has competed in the X Games, set Guinness Book of World Records, and is an amazing skater period. He was born in Kettering, Ohio and used to travel down to my hometown of Lexington, KY to skate every now and then. A few of my friends would skate with him way back in the day.
With Rob's location, he easily had access to horse racing via Beulah Park, Thistledowns, River Downs and even Turfway Park. After being successful at skating and starting a few companies, including Alien Workshop, he moved to California to grow his involvement in the sport and grow the sport as a whole.
I grew up skating, although I personally did aggressive inline skating and was not good at it =). Laugh if you will, but I still followed the ever evolving culture of skate boarding, inline skating, surfing and more "X-game" type stuff. I emphasize X-games, because it really helped showcase the talent and culture nationally. I remember watching the first airing in 1995, thank you ESPN.
In this episode Rob names his horse "Mega Horse" and determines his jockey name to be "Bolt Speedman." Rob takes you through his prepping for jockeying his newly acquired race horse in the horses' first REAL race at Hollywood Park. Do you think he will stay on, and does he even have a chance to win his race? You will have to watch and find out, I promise it is worth it.
To tie this into the industry, it is evident that we could use more owners, and educated owners at that. I was excited to see a fun spin on such a great sport. If we as an industry could only promote racing in such a way. Examine how Rob does take jockeying seriously, though he jokes around a lot, to learn the techniques, take lessons and understand how it works. We don't see everything he does to prep for the race, since the show can only be a certain time length. Enjoy.
Ep. 1 Dirty Man-Horse
Rob busts out his alter-ego 'Bolt Speedman' to jockey his new Mega Horse and mentors Drama in his career as a mini-mogul.
Watch the full episode, click here if you get "video is no longer available" to watch at MTV.com for free.
Rob Dyrdek encourages jockey uniform as Halloween Costume.
Jockey Training Trick into the Foam Pit
Bonus horse leg video here.
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UPDATE: I received a few questions and did some further digging, here is what I found...
It seems Rob bought a share with Ciaglia Racing LLC and Frank Alesia. Euroglide and She's Cheeky are two horses owned by Ciaglia Racing for example. Ciaglia builds pro skate-parks and is friends with Dyrdek.
"...Professional skateboarding champion Rob Dyrdek, an avid horse racing enthusiast, was at Oak Tree Wednesday to see the 2-year-old filly Jet Blue Girl win the first race for trainer Peter Eurton. One of the filly’s owners is Joe Ciaglia, who builds skateboard parks. The 35-year-old Dyrdek, a native of Ohio who once rode in a mock Thoroughbred race at Hollywood Park, visited the Oak Tree jockeys’ room, where he enjoyed photo ops with his fellow athletes . . . " -- Ed Golden's, Stable Notes
There is a Megahorse registered in Australia. Megahorse is by Tobougg (IRE) - Megamota (AUS) by Aakaaber, but I doubt this is the horse Dyrdek is associated with.
