Winning Ponies

Randy Paul Romero was born December 22, 1957 in Erath, Louisiana, into a family involved with horses. His father Lloyd J. Romero was a Louisiana state trooper who trained American Quarter Horses and later, after a drunk driver crashed into his police car and permanently disabled him, he began training Thoroughbreds for flat racing. The 1978 movie Casey's Shadow is based on Lloyd Romero and his family. Randy was elected into the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame May 27, 2010. In 1975 Randy Romero began his professional riding career at Evangeline Downs in Lafayette, Louisiana. Nicknamed the Ragin' Cajun, in 1983 at Oaklawn Park racetrack in Arkansas Romero suffered a near career-ending injury when he received major burns to two-thirds of his body from a freak fire, that erupted while taking a sauna. He had rubbed himself down with alcohol and moved into the sauna in the jockey's room.