Jockey Greta Kuntzweiler resumed her riding career June 24 at Churchill Downs with three mounts on the nine-race card.
After finishing off the board in her first two rides of the day, Kuntzweiler guided Glen Hill Farm's Broken Dreams to a runner-up finish in the eighth race, a non-winners of two allowance contest for fillies and mares on the turf. Despite not winning, it was a major step forward for Kuntzweiler, who last rode in 2005.
Kuntzweiler, 34, was granted a jockey's license by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission earlier this month after a lengthy absence. Her career was derailed beginning in 2006 after the first of a pair of arrests on drug charges. In 2007, she pleaded guilty to several drug-related offenses and agreed to five years' probation on a suspended 10-year prison sentence.
At her June hearing with the KHRC, Kuntzweiler told a committee she has not used drugs since her 2007 arrest and was well prepared to resume her career.
“I am better physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually than I ever have been, and it is the result of doing a lot of inner work and finding out how to use this support system,” she said at the time. “I know how to support myself and I know how to take care of myself. I have done a lot of work to get to where I am.”
Kuntzweiler began her career in 1999 and has ridden 425 winners from 4,680 starts. Her lone graded stakes win came aboard Freefourinternet in the 2002 Hawthorne Gold Cup (gr. II). She has 13 black-type wins to her credit and her mounts have earned more than $8.7 million. Among her other career highlights was a riding title at the 2002 winter-spring meet at Turfway Park
Kuntzweiler began her comeback by exercising horses for trainer Don Grego at the Skylight Training Center.
Steve Krajcir will handle the book for Kuntzweiler, who is expected to ride at Ellis Park this summer.