Hello, my name is Joseph Pigliatti. I am also known as Joey the Pig, Pork Chop Joey, Joey the Big Hurt, Heart Attack Joey, Joey the Mook and Joey Cotton Candy. If you don’t mind I prefer Joey the Pig. The good people at gambleonthis.com have asked me to write an article about the fattest jockey I ever knew. It is hard but I will try.
The fattest Jockey I ever knew was named Corky McDuff and he weighed about 500 pounds. Well, maybe Corky didn’t weigh that much but he was so fat that people would jog around him for exercise. He was so fat that it looked like he was smuggling a Volkswagen. He was so fat that you had to take a train and two buses just to get on his good side. I think you get the point.
Anyhow, I first met Corky McDuff at the Meadowlands racetrack in Jersey. And when I first met him he was no bigger than an acorn. He was a tiny little Irish fella who loved race horses. When he wasn’t at the track he was probably doing what other Irish fellas do like drinking Guinness and eating potatoes and sing Danny Boy. I’m not exactly sure of this because I’m only guessing what Irish people do. After all, I’m not Irish.
To get back to my story Corky McDuff was a tiny little skinny fella and a great jockey who had wonderful understanding of horses. Then one day he meets Maria. Now, Maria is a very beautiful woman. And not only that but can she cook!
I went over to their house one night for dinner and her marinara sauce made me weep. I sat there eating mouthful after mouthful of pasta and weeping like a baby. And just thinking about her juicy and tender veal cutlets brings tears to my eyes.
Anyhow, until Corky McDuff met Maria he was this tiny little skinny fella who was one of the up and coming young jockey’s in the country. After he met Maria and married her it was almost over night that he turned into this 500 pound jockey. It was all her great cooking. And when you weigh more than your horse it sort of hurts your chances of finishing first.
Corky’s career went on the down side real fast. I can remember his last race. I was at the Meadowlands and I had just made a big bet on my favorite horse called Dimples. Dimples was a great racehorse and usually finished in the money. I went down to the front row of the stands by the starting gate. I wanted to get a close look at Dimples before the race began.
That’s when I noticed who Dimples jockey was. It was Corky McDuff. Well, I immediately ripped my ticket in half knowing that Dimples had no chance of winning. But the strange thing was that it looked like Dimples didn’t have a jockey on its back. It looked more like Dimples had another animal on his back and that animal looked like a pig.
Anyhow, the race starts and Dimples gets ten feet out of the gate when it stops. It won’t budge an inch. Corky is giving it the strap and trying to get it to run. But Dimples won’t have anything to do with it. Then Dimples looks at the crowd with an expression on its face that says “What chance do I have at winning this race with this fat fool on my back?”
Corky rolls off the horse and stands there staring at it. That’s when Dimples takes off. So Corky waddles off the track, goes to his locker and cleans it out and nobody has heard from him since. Though, I think, Dimples placed in that race.
I hope you good folk enjoyed my article. It was fun remembering it.
Until next time, Arrividerci.
© by Joseph Pigliatti. All rights reserved.