There we go, Baby News ready to eight forty whas Dwhite witting, Dave
Jennings off today, Tony Vinetti off today. But my buddy Rick is here.
Rick, say hi to me, Go, Hey, how's it going
everybody. We're gonna have some fun today. I got a mint. Look,
I'm winning lazy today because well, today is National Tequila Day, so
I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna sit in the studio,
sip on some Number one tequila and just play some of my favorite interviews from
over the years, even going back to when I first started on WHS.
We're gonna hear from Johnny Rotten aka John Lyden, I'm gonna hear from Dion
Branch and Pat Day. Wow, what a genuine guy Pat Day is and
what a great testimony he has. We're gonna hear from him at nine thirty.
But right now I want to go back. Imagine, imagine Lou Graham
leaving Foreigner and taking the place of Lou Graham. That happened with Johnny Edwards
from Louisville's own buster Brown Bend, and boy, I love that band as
well. Let's go ahead and roll it now. This is Johnny Edwards back
in the studio years ago. All right, this is ready to wait forty
WHS Dwight witting Happy National Tequila Day as I hang out with Rick, Dave,
Jenny's off, Tony Vedeni's off. So I thought, you know what,
I'm just gonna go in and sit back and sip some tequila and play
some of my favorite interviews from the past. Some'm even going all the way
back to the first year when I started WHS. But right now, Rick,
it's time now for joke of the day. You ready for it.
I've got the music right here. I need the immunity music bad on this
one. I'm bad. Here we go, all right, here we go.
Hey, hey, Rick, Hey, joy general. Last week,
the man who invented throw lodgages actually died. Oh is it right? Yeah,
that's horrible. There was no call into the funeral. I'm sorry.
Man. Southern covered Hot tubs, Baby, you're gonna love your Southern comfort
hot tubs. Susan and I were in ours just about every night. We
love to end the way that night a couple of number one to Kila's getting
our Southern covered hot tub, and it's the perfect way to reconnect with the
ones that you love. Here's what you don't want to do. Buy a
hot tub from one of these traveling you know, fly by night joints.
When they come into town and they sell you a hot tub and then they
leave town. What's gonna happen if you have issues with your hot tub?
I'll tell you what a whole lot of hurt. Why not buy local and
get fantastic prizes? Right now? Southern Comfort hot Tubs has their hot tubs
mark down as low as fifty percent off. That's right this weekend next week,
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hot tub, please think again, loved ones. How about this hot tubs
as low as sixty five dollars a month. Susan and I we used twelve
months, same as cash, and it made paying ours off within a year.
A bereeze, You're gonna love your Southern Cover hot tub or your swim
spa deeper than the swim spots. They're deeper than above ground pools and you
can swim in it, swim in at all year round and one end serves
as just a hot tub. Southern Covered hot Tub seventy five. Oh what
pressing highway. You're gonna love them. Stick around, Courtney dunnahoe, and
that's gonna tell us what our news is doing. And then at the bomb
of the hour, we're gonna hear it from Pat Day, such a genuine
great guy and such a great testimony. Wait till you hear this. It's
all on the way. News Radio eight forty whas sorry about that taking anything
to work here? Hold on, that's okay, live without a net baby,
Hey, News Radio eight forty wha. S right, there's my buddy,
Rick. I'm Dwight Witting, Dave Jennings off, Tony Vananti off.
But Courtney Dunnaho, you're here, right, I'm here? Wow, you
not get off? What happened? That didn't sound that? Rick? Can
you isolate that audio and say, please, hey listen. I don't know
how yes yours today? Because well, I know how to do one thing.
I know how to turn on the microphone button and that's it. Because
they they gave class on how to work these studios. Okay, and a
couple of times in my life I slept through class. That was one of
them. So I literally know how to hit the red button. I won't
even get behind the board. I just get behind my regular mic when I'm
in here. So I don't know how we're going to do really in the
years. If we do really in the years, and I'm hoping the red
button or whatever it doesn't accidentally launch rockets, I can just see that all
happening. I will say this, Courtney, donaho. There's some other interesting
colored buttons in here. I'm seeing a pretty blue one. There's a yellow
onet. Okay, well, you know you're a little cat. Don't touch,
don't don't go, don't go for the glittering stuff. Just don't press
anything. Just keep talking. Well, maybe I guess I could probably sing
the songs and you and Rick could play it. Rick's been through it.
Hey, Rick, is he there? You gotta do we gotta do it
really in the years, guys. Okay, Okay, Well, well you're
gonna you're gonna be the one hosting it, can you? So I picked
the songs, right, you picked the year? You picked the songs.
Okay, wait, and I will Dwight and I will figure it out.
Yeah, how about is that cool with you? Rick? Yeah? I
could do an hour to prep for it. You got an hour to prep
for Okay, But happy listen, I'm gonna beat you to it. Happy
National Tequila Day. I saw that exciting. It's a number and number one
day. Right, Oh my gosh, I've never loved you more. No,
you know what it is. It's a wonderful day. How about this
exactly? Yeah? No, I love my number one tequila. So happy
sitting in your Southern Comfort hotels. Put your shady rais on. Damn right.
Just about every single night, just about every single night. I got
to get you a bottle of Number one and some shady rays. Yeah,
not a hot tub too. I you know, I need something in the
backyard. I just actually did some work on my backyard. I decided to
change around some of my flowers. I did some nice new plantings and things.
It looks really pretty back there. It looks super cozy. I hung
these lights and everything. Oh I want the backyard light. Yeah. Your
backyard lights are key, the little ones. Yeah that's what I'm talking about,
the one that you kind of line the yard with and some people string
them over their head and all this crap. It looks so good. I
have that now hanging over and so my cousin. My cousin came over to
visit and he was. He was like, Oh, your backyard looks so
good. It looks so cozy. So yeah, I'm pretty excited about some
of the changes. The neighbors directly behind is to the left. They have
so many lights on in their trees and stuff. When they turn them on
a night, it looks like a used car lot or something. Oh no,
no, it looks like the circus in town or something. You only
all go up in the air and rectangles. But no, there's a limit
between something really good and something really not so well. And this might explain
a lot. Too much of a good thing is not never a good thing.
The grandmother on my mother's side, Ava Yoder, she had a saying,
and this might explain a little bit about me. She always told me,
if one's good, two is better. M yeah, one good to
better, but like ten, maybe take a pause on that. It's kind
of like Coco Chanel. You don't add, you know, just take away
if you think you should put on, just take that accessory off. So
yeah, take that take that seate ofllites down. Frank or Joe whatever.
Frank. I feel like all my neighbors are Frank. So it's like Frank
take it's where every one of my neighbors is like Frank, Joe or Phil
them. Yeah, no, my neighbors are Oh, my neighbors have wonderful
They've been so so helpful to me and the kids over the past year.
I mean, it's unreal the amount of food that we ended up getting.
I was actually laughing with a couple of my neighbors because during Christmas week people
just kept dropping off so much food and so many cookies and so many different
things. But the problem is I couldn't give them away. I couldn't eat
all the cookies because they were like, no, you can't have it.
My father has diabetes, can't You can't have the cookies either. So but
you can't put it on like the local giveaway sort of sites, because everybody's
like, well I brought you that set of cookies, where are you just
giving them away? So, oh my goodness, I ended up with way
too many cookie platters. I could have opened up a cafe or something like
that. But anyway, let me give you the markets because they are at
the open. We talked about ups yesterday. They had a horribly rough day.
They saw their worst stock to climb in twenty five years. Yesterday they
said their package delivery volume wasn't enough to offset higher labor costs. You know,
they have a new Teamsters deal. It's all front loaded, a lot
of money they said right now they have to give away, but it should
peter out a little bit toward the toward future years. But it weighed on
the overall markets yesterday and this morning, we are seeing stocks falling once again,
and it's really led by the tech heavy Nasdaq, which is down one
point four percent. We have shares Tesla lower, Google parent Alphabet falling.
Both reported underwhelming earnings data. So we do see the S and P five
hundred down nine tens of a percent, the Dow falling one hundred and forty
points at the open. So it's looking like a tough day for everybody.
With the news radio eight forty wha s Bloomberg Money Report, I'm Courtney Donaho
and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of
the four beasts saying come and see and usow and the hold a white horse.
Now news Radio eight forty whas sound wide. That's rig rolling on through
your Wednesday, Hey listen. So I'm just basically going back and playing some
of my old favorite interviews today and I talk openly about everything on this show
in my life, everything's including sometimes my faith. I'm a Christian. I
know I got plenty of faults, but I'm a Christian nonetheless, and thank
God for grace. Well, last week when I was down with the flu,
somehow I got put on my heart to reach out via text and thank
others that have been a positive influence in my life when it comes to Jesus
Christ, Greg, get your Brad McMahon. Lots of influences. Well,
one of those influences in a big way is my friend Pat Day. Huge
influence. I don't know if you've ever met the man or seen him speak,
but wow, it doesn't get any more genuine than that. So I
thought, you know what, I'm going to replay the first time that Pat
Day ever came in my studio. This is way early in my career,
and I dug this up. I'm going to play it now. I know
I'm going to enjoy it, and I hope you do too. Here's Pat
Day Day. How are you, my friend? I'm doing excellent? Thank
you? How are you doing to see that I'm doing great? Listen?
So my wife and I we go to Cabo every single year and we're down
there for Sammy Hagar's birthday party and we get up early before anyone else does.
But it's a party place Cabo, and said, we're having our coffee.
One morning. I look across and I said, hey, honey,
that looks like Pat Day. And she said, well, that's because it's
Pat Day. And I walked over and you invited me us down and we
sat down. We had coffee with you, Inkabo, saying Lucas. Since
then, we've crossed path about three times since October, and I said,
man, I've always wanted to just a guest. And I reached out and
I said, gotta get him, and you came on. So I thank
you for coming on. Well, I thank you, And it was a
pleasure to meet you in Cabo. We were there actually celebrating my wife's birthday.
Yeah you guys, you were in Cobbo with a ton of family or
something, right, Yeah, yeah, Well you got such an interesting story.
That's one of the reasons I wanted John. But let's let's go back
to the very beginning. You've won the Kentucky Derby, You've got so many
records out there in the horse racing industry. I mean, you're locked.
You're etched in stone in the horse racing history books. But going back to
the beginning, you didn't even know anything about horse racing. As a matter
of fact, you wanted to be a world champion bull rider. So how
do you make that transition from being a world champion bull rider to jockey?
And why would you even want to be a bull rider? That seems even
more dangerous. Well, I guess I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie.
But it was, you know, rodeo was a summertime pastime for people growing
up and kids in my neighborhood up in Colorado. The nearest racetrack was in
Denver, and I think we went to Denver two or three times, you
know, during my childhood, and never went to the races. So,
you know, I believe, Dwight, I believe my steps were being divine
directed. I'll be very honest with you, you know, I obviously I
got involved with rodeo's had a desire to be a professional bull rider. I
had a very limited amount of ability and subsequently success as a bull rider,
but it had done a couple of things to further my career as a jockey.
Number one, it helped me. It taught me how to fall oh
really, oh yeah? And I believe that that ability played me well in
my racing career. It helped me to avoid serious injury throughout my racing career.
But more importantly, it got me in front of people that knew about
horse racing and given my small stature, small size, inability to ride bulls,
they suggested or recommended that I should be a jockey. Guy gave me
his name and number, said, if you have an interest, give me
a call. I did. He got me a job on a thurbrid farm
in California in January of seventy three. And the rest, as they say,
is history. Yep, I heard, is that the same range?
And maybe if I'm off on a let me know. But I heard that
you get to a ranch and they said, look, to be a successful
jockey, you got to be here for two years. You've got to learn
the whole thing. You say, yeah, yeah, I'm in, and
after a month you walk away from it. Is that that same ranch?
Yep? Riverside throwbread farm. So how do you go from walking away from
it to becoming a jockey. Well again, I think my steps were being
divinely directed, because when I left the farm, I had no intention of
pursuing a career as a jockey. Everything in my mind at that point was
what can I do to further my career as a bull rider? And I
went to Las Vegas, Nevada, with the intention of getting a job doing
something for the winter months, and when springtime rolled around, I was going
to try to get a job with a stock contractor that would give me the
opportunity to practice through the week and work on the weekends rodeo on the weekends.
Couldn't find a job. Somebody said they've got a little racetrack on the
outskirts of Las Vegas here called Las Vegas Down. They was trying to get
it started. A couple of people out there using it for a winter training
track. Going and apply for a job, and I did. A fellow
named Steve Talbot befriended me. He had three horses. He said, you
can exercise my horses. I'll give you two dollars ahead, And so for
two months I got on his three horses every day for two dollars ahead.
Then he departed Las Vegas and went to Arizona where he was the clerk of
scales. Who is He's the one that oversees all of the activities in the
jockeys room and make sure everybody's carrying the right weights. He was the clerk
of scales on the racing circuit in southern Arizona, and so I followed him
down there. He said, I'll introduce you to people, have you to
continue with your pursuit as a jockey. Still wasn't sure that's what I wanted
to do. I stopped in Wickenberg, Arizona. Had a cowboy friend of
mine living there, and so I stopped and visited him for a week and
finally said I better go join Steve. I did. Went to Southern Arizona.
I got hooked up with Steve, started getting on horses on the fair
circuit. They were just running on the weekends, bottom level racing. The
circuit moved to Prescott Downs for the summer. I went to Prescott got introduced
to a fellow named Carl Pugh. He was a professional cowboy team roper turned
horse trainer. Him and I hit it off right away, became the best
of friends. He started letting me or paying me to exercise his horses.
I believe he was giving me fifty bucks a week and he had thirty head
of horses. Wow. But I just loved it. I loved getting on
the horses and around and by the end, by the middle of July,
I said Carl, I want to start riding, and he said, I'll
let you ride a few my horses. Subsequently, on July twenty ninth,
nineteen seventy three, seven months after I was on the farm, I won
my first race. By January the following year, I was the leading rider
at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Arizona. Testimony to the fact that God had
endowed me with tremendous talent and ability. I was an absolute natural. Didn't
know what I was doing, but I was doing it and being highly successful.
That's incredible. And what drew you to wanting to become a jockey?
What was the lure for you? What did you want actually to start off
with? It was just a job, okay, But I loved horses.
I loved being around the horses. And then of course when I went to
Arizona on the fair circuit, even though it was bottom level racing, to
be around the thrill, you know, when they jumped away from the gate
and the race, and I mean I started getting very enthused. And we
went to Prescott and Carl I started taking the horses to the starting gate in
the afternoons as well as getting on them in the mornings and watching the races
and just around that. It just, man, I want to ride.
It was a thrill of participating, but to win, I mean, obviously
that was a home run. So okay, So let's fast forward now,
and you're on top of the game. You're on top of the racing world,
and me outside looking in and I'm seeing Pat Day. He's winning all
these races. You have the fame, you have the fortune, You've got
a beautiful wife, Sheila, who got the house. I'm thinking, this
guy has it all. He's got everything anybody once, but things are kind
of dark for Pat Day. And take me back to that night in Miami.
What happened and what broke you well, what happened to just lay the
groundwork for that I had. You know, through the course of my early
part of my career, I'm having success and I'm winning races. I've got
a beautiful wife. As you said things obviously looked like they should be okay,
like I should be happy, content, overflowing happy. You know,
I was successful by the world standards, but I'd gotten involved with drugs and
alcohol. I was a stone alcoholic drug addict, if you would, and
testimony to the talent that I've been blessed with. I was continuing to win
races. In nineteen eighty two, I won the national writing title, and
I thought, you know, the missing piece to the puzzle, I thought
was that level of success. I thought, man, you know, if
I could be the leading writer in North America, if I could get my
name up in some national acclaim, I'll never have another bad day. So
I wrote hard, won the national riding title, went on a two week
bender. When I came out of that, the fleeting feeling of succeeding had
gone, It dissipated. It was tremendous accomplishment, but I discovered that it
didn't fill that void in my heart, and that sent me searching. I
remember screaming into heaven, you know, walking outside, looking up into the
sky and saying, what am I here for? Wow? And I wasn't
getting any answers. As the Lord would have it. In nineteen eighty three.
I was the leading writer again, tremendous accomplishment, but I knew that
it wasn't going to fill the void in my heart. January twenty seventh,
my wife, Sheila, and I are vacationing in Colorado with my family,
and she drove me into Denver. I got on a plane flew to Miami,
Florida, where I was scheduled riding a race at highly a park the
next day. I got into Miami late in the evening, checked into a
hotel near the airport, got my room, turned the TV set on,
which is a habit just for noise company started getting ready for bed. The
program on that particular channel happened to be a Jimmy Schwiger televised crusade. Now,
when I'm already forbid, the last person I wanted to listen to was
some television evangelist. I didn't think that he had the answers to my deliver
I thought that Christianity or religion was for women and children and whims. It
wasn't for a successful man like me. And I was looking for answers.
And so when I'm all ready for bed, I ran through the dial through
the channels on that TV set. It was one of the old before the
days of remote control. Yep, yep, yep, got all the way
around the dial back to Jimmy Swigert, Nothing got my attention. I went
to bed soon as my head hit the pillow. I went sound asleep,
and slept so soundly that when I awoke, I thought I'd been sleeping for
six or eight hours. But I awoke to the distinct feeling that I wasn't
by myself. I set up right in bed. I looked around the room.
I couldn't see anything, but I could feel the presence, and I
believe that at that moment the Lord prompted me to walk over and turn but
I walked over it turned it on. As the picture materialized on the screen,
I realized, I've not been sleeping very long. Jimmy Schwiger is still
on TV. Just completed delivering these message of salvation through belief in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and he was extending the invitation to the viewing audience, to
any and all that would care to receive Christ as our savior. And at
that moment, Dwight, it was like the scales were removed from my eyes.
I recognized, realized the presence there with me was the spirit of the
Living God, and this was my ultra call. And I fell on my
knees and wept and cried, invited a Christian in my life, never to
be the same again. Wow. Okay, Pat Days joining us when we
come back. I want to talk to you about winning the Kentucky Derby and
there's a story to that that I think is incredible and can you stick around
with me? Absolutely? All right, more with Pat More with Pat Day
when we continue on news radio eight forty WJ. Unfortunately that's all we get
with Pat Day because I couldn't find the second segment to that. But man,
if you ever get a chance to see the guy speak, what a
genuine guy. And hey, let me tell you about my Shady Rays.
I got him on right now. As a matter of fact, you're gonna
love your Shady Rays. If you're a golfer. I want to recommend the
Shady Rays Greenwolf. This is a series of golf glasses and every golfer I've
recommended to they absolutely love them. I love the color Rush, particularly in
the aviators and those are brand new right now. But go buy the Oxmore
Center try on a pair of these Shady Rays and they're idiot proof. If
you lose them, scratch them, break them, even if they're stolen,
they replace them. And if you use code whas that's in store at the
Oxmore Center. Online at shady rais dot com fifty percent off two or more
pair. I love my Shady Rays. You will too. Go to shadyrays
dot com. More on the way to the top of the hour, including
Wednesday's Hero News Radio eight forty whas