You have to understand that I did not expect my world to be turned upside-down today. I hunkered down to work in my home office, while outside a snowstorm bore down on me. I was quite fine. Drinking coffee, gathering information on the web, I was utterly loving the silence that a snowstorm forces on a community. Streets become quiet. Cars hush themselves. Even scofflaws come out in the daytime to open their mouths and catch the six-pointed, icy stars on their tongues.
Yes, “scofflaws”: you know, those people whose business is done by the dark of night. The shadows are their friends. Like behoodied vampires, the harsh glow of daylight sends them skittering back into their alleyways and abandoned buildings. As so many cockroaches, they seek the company only of their own, and not all that often. But snow! Snow, it seems, reminds us all–even the scofflaws–of our childhood. For just a moment, even the hardest or saddest of us is taken back to a time when our biggest cares involved whether to take the orange or purple ice-pop on a sweltering August afternoon.
So I loved the snow, and the quiet, and the prospect of getting a ton of work done today. Deadlines to meet tomorrow, and the next day, and Monday, and so forth. Today was a day full of promise. My plan for productivity and peace was in place…until I picked up my CrackBerry, turned to msnbc.com and read that Davy Jones had died…
Davy Jones. I read those words, and uttered, “Oh, no!” I looked around, as if someone in the building could deny this horrible rumor for me. My cat was uncharacteristically mute. I rushed to the computer, and went looking for more information. It wasn’t hard to find–the Internet was abuzz. Facebook had become Davy Jones Central.
This could not be.
This could not be.
Who is Davy Jones, and why does his death matter to me? Why should it matter to you? And why, for God’s Sake, should it matter to the horse racing community?
Davy Jones, for those of you who may not have been privy to American pop culture in the 1960s–was the cutest, sexiest singer in the world. I gushed that like a 10-year-old girl just now, because that’s precisely who I was when my crush on Davy was at its zenith. There is no emotion more pure, new, honest and confused than that of a girl who’s discovering parts of her own feelings, via a non-relationship/relationship with her first pop star. The relationship is non-existent, yet for the girl it has all the markings of The Real Thing. It hurts, it feels wonderful, it aches, it makes you tingle. Hearing his voice on the radio is tantamount to ecstasy.
Davy Jones was my first relationship with a man, and yet we never met. That’s OK, that’s standard in the industry for this sort of love affair. I got all I needed from the arrangement: I had my first experience of feelings that theretofore were foreign to me–and in a safe environment, the safest in the world. Sitting around Grace’s upstairs family room with other girls, listening to every breath that Davy took in every song he sang.
And it was OK that I was just one of millions. Oh, sure, we all wanted to be The One, but we knew that that wasn’t going to happen. (If for no other reason than that he was a man, and we were girls. But the age difference was the very least of the reasons why none of us were destined to become Mrs. Davy Jones.) We were individuals, and yet members of something much larger than ourselves. We were a community.
As one of the lead singers of the Monkees (along with Micky Dolenz), Davy and his adorable English accent, slight stature and straight, Prince Valiant haircut–stole the tender hearts of young girls, and charmed our Mothers (whose response to rock musicians ranged from nervous to outright animosity). Davy was “safe,” as far as Mother could see, so she bought every Monkees album for me, the minute they hit the shelves in Topps. Davy Jones, thank God, was not Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix or Robert Plant. (My admiration for those more street-savvy men was not of the same strain as that for Davy. I loved the Beatles’ music and political statements, but I wanted Davy. And I had no idea what that meant.)
So today Davy Jones died, and with him went a huge piece of my heart, and of my youth.
I will turn 56 in just a couple of days, and that idea almost amuses me–while the notion also seems to be some sort of cruel cosmic joke. How can I–I??–be running, full-tilt boogie, toward 60? That’s high-sterically funny, for, in my mind, I’m still 22 and hot.
The evidence says that I’m aging, although my mind and soul say it ain’t so.
And one young man–one sweet, handsome, talented soul, with a voice like a baby bird who’s learned to use his new song–somewhere along the line, Davy Jones became human, just like me. I’m getting older, but Davy Jones was older, still. Still too young to die, he had much to give the world yet. But just as I am surprised that I’m no longer 10–wearing my white go-go boots and lime green fishnet tights (really)–and rockin’ out to I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone–somehow, also, my secret love, Davy Jones grew up, grew older and, for whatever reason–in spite of a recent clean bill of health–his heart decided that it was time to leave this earthly plane. Davy has joined the heavenly choir, and the song will be that-much more sweet. I hope God gives him a solo.
So I’m sitting here, listening to Daydream Believer, and crying my guts out. I remember–as if it was yesterday, I tell you–hearing Davy sing that line, “…my shaving razor’s cold, and it stings,” and my friends and are I giggling wildly that…Davy Jones shaves…he must be soooooooo sophisticated!
We were a community of lovers, these Davy Jones fanatics…and one lifetime, one universe, one world away–the horse racing family is also a community–and that community, as well, lost a treasured member today. If you’ve not read in The Paulick Report or elsewhere on February 29th Davy Jones, before he found his way to the stage, wanted with all his heart to be a jockey.
Yes! At age 14, Davy left home to become a jockey. He was mentored by the British
trainer, Basil Foster, who realized that, while Jones could be a good jockey, indeed–he had It to become a great singer and actor. He fairly kicked the young bug off the race course, and into the theatre–and no doubt the world is a better place because of Mr. Foster’s insistence that Jones follow his talents wherever they should go.
But the horses never were far from Davy’s heart and mind: in 1994, he actually galloped a three-year-old filly, Love Dancing, at Churchill Downs–and in 1996, he won an amateur jockeys’ race at Lingfield–he was a jockey in that race, at last.
In the meantime, he owned Thoroughbreds, and raced at Colonial Downs and other tracks. In the early 2000s, he campaigned T.E. Jones, a daughter of the great sire, Grand Slam. As recently as December, 2011, he spoke of the six Thoroughbreds he had on his farm.
Davy Jones–singer, dancer, actor, heartthrob, my first love–was, in his soul, first and foremost–a horseman. The Monkees took him for a wild ride, but the ride he cherished the most was that given him by his Thoroughbreds. Horse racing lost one of our most ardent fans and devoted owners today: Davy Jones never won a Triple Crown race, or the Dubai World Cup. He didn’t campaign a Horse of the Year. No, Davy Jones was far-more like the rest of us, we who never will see the inside of a million-dollar-bill, yet who love the horses with every bit of soul we have to share. Davy Jones was a genuine horseman: plain and simple, he loved horses and riding them more than could be measured.
That love, that devotion–his desire to see horse racing become a sport that’s embraced by families, and rise to enormous popularity again–is the kind of commitment that horse racing needs. We need more Davy Joneses. We lost the original today, and tonight we grieve and offer comfort and prayers to his widow and four daughters. Yes, his family lost the man in their lives–but our family, our horse racing community–lost a gentleman who led by example. Davy Jones worked to help grow the sport, one horse, one family, one expression of love at a time.
Forty-seven years ago, Davy Jones sang his way into my heart–we’re all grown up now, and, as grown-ups know–sometimes, Life hurts. Tonight the racing community hurts: I hope that someone, somewhere, creates a ceremony to pay proper respect to this most enthusiastic of horsemen.
It’s the least we can do for one of our own, who also happened–in his spare time, when he wasn’t lovin’ up on a horse–to be a rock star. Davy Jones, Rest in God’s arms, comrade.
Photo credits – Many thanks to:
Davy Jones photo, US Weekly
Davy Jones Jockey photo, MySanAntonio/Getty Images
Davy Jones Winning Jockey photo, USAToday
