As a young teen-ager, he decided he wanted to be a jockey. He made a pact with his parents that, if weight became a problem, he'd give it up rather than going through starvation diets and steam rooms.

He rode his first race on May 12, 1976, and he won for the first time on May 27, formally becoming an apprentice. At River Downs, Cauthen set a track record by riding 94 winners in 50 days. He went from there to Arlington Park in Chicago, then east to Aqueduct and Belmont.

One racing columnist wrote of him, during his first year in the east, "He gets horses relaxed, feeling good. Even the real goof-offs seem to run for him." As a full-fledged jockey in 1977, Cauthen won a record $6.1 million in purses, was named the Eclipse Award winner as the nation's top rider, and was the Associated Press male athlete of the year.

In 1978, Cauthen became the youngest jockey to win the triple crown, riding Affirmed to victories in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont. The Belmont win was one of the most exciting ever in triple crown history, as Cauthen whipped Affirmed across the finish line a bare head beyond Alydar.

Cauthen ran into problems in 1979, riding 110 consecutive races without a win, and then accepted an offer of well over $1 million to ride in England. He spent the rest of his career there and was the English champion in 1984, 1985, and 1987.

At the end of the 1985 season, Cauthen went into an alcohol dependency program in Cincinnati, worried that he might be drinking too much. He said later that he wasn't an alcoholic. In 1988, he broke his neck in a fall and spent seven months recuperating.

Cauthen retired from jockeying at the age of thirty-three, recently married and about to become a father. He has worked as a television commentator and raised horses in his native Kentucky.

Golf,