River Downs Bobblehead Giveaways

As far as I know, there were only two of these in recent history, one to link to the Seabiscuit movie of 2003, and one to honor a local jockey.

Seabiscuit-2003

Bobbleheads of famous racehorses had quite a run and are fairly popular with collectors. Like boxing, horse racing has declined in general popularity as the decades passed. But also like boxing, there remain a core of very dedicated fans. Most of the famous racehorses have been portrayed on these, and the Seabiscuit movie was a chance for River Downs to remind everyone that the great horse raced there twice in the 1930’s.

The box was generic, as was the box for the jockey below. I guess they don’t have the budgets baseball teams have, so they have to pass on elaborate boxes. The item came with a commemorative program. I have one somewhere, but sadly, I was unable to find it to take a picture of it. Demand for these was pretty heavy, and the lines for these were considerable. I believe they gave out 10,000.

Perry Ouzts-2006

This was given out by River Downs to honor a jockey who never attained worldwide fame, but was a steady performer known by all true race fans around Cincinnati. He suffered a horrible fall from a horse a few years back, but was able to recover and make it back to doing what he loves in 2007. This bobble is actually quite desirable. They were an easy sale on ebay for $25 each or so on a BIN listing, and one auction saw it go for over $100! Horse racing fans are dedicated!

Let’s face it, an ambulance probably doesn’t follow you around in the normal course of your job duties, so yeah, jockeys have a lot of guts and deserve to be honored.

Compared to the earlier Seabiscuit giveaway, this one wasn’t passed out with much fanfare. People lined up for the Seabiscuit one, which was carefully rationed, but these were something you could walk up and buy a few of. My guess is that this run was pretty small, with perhaps a couple thousand produced. It came with a commemorative program.

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