An Oklahoma-born jockey who won all three Triple Crown races during a career full of awards will be remembered at a memorial service Friday in Tulsa. Johnny Sellers, 72, was raised on a farm outside Tulsa. "He loved riding so much that he would get up early in the morning to ride and then go directly to school," said Nita Sellers, his sister-in-law. Brien Bouyea, communications officer for the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, said in an e-mail that Sellers "won all three Triple Crown races as well as many other important events on both the East Coast and West Coast." "He was a talented and respected rider for more than 20 years, and he will forever be remembered fondly by fans of thoroughbred racing," Bouyea said. Nita Sellers said that "he won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in 1961 (and) won the Belmont Stakes in 1965. So he won all of the races that would make you a Triple Crown winner, but he won them during separate years." Sellers scored his first success at Sunshine Park, now Tampa Bay Downs, in 1955 and added 2,786 more victories during his career, Bouyea said. "Sellers enjoyed tremendous success as a rider, winning major races throughout the United States," he added. Sellers was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in August 1961. He won 328 races that year, the most among all riders in North America. Included among the wins were seven stakes aboard the Florida-bred horse Carry Back, who registered victories in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby, Everglades Stakes, Jerome Handicap and Trenton Handicap. Sellers was honored by his peers with the George Woolf Memorial Award in 1969. Nita Sellers said many people don't know the behind-the-scenes work Sellers did for professional jockeys. "He would work with them on their English and communications skills," she said. "He always worked to make sure that everyone was treated with respect and presented themselves well when it came to being in the public eye. It was very important that they looked and sounded intelligent." While he was living in Monrovia, Calif., Sellers' house was broken into, and his Kentucky Derby trophy was stolen. "He thought he wasn't going to see it again," Nita Sellers said, but a friend found the trophy for sale on eBay. "A friend of ours and his publicity agent talked to the man trying to sell the trophy, and he managed to give it back to us for free," she said. At the conclusion of his riding career, Sellers worked as a bloodstock agent in Florida. He was inducted into the National Racing Hall of Fame in 2007. He died July 2 in a Fayetteville, Ark., nursing home. Sellers is survived by two sons, Mark Sellers, also a retired jockey, and John Michael Sellers. A memorial service will begin at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the First United Methodist Church in Tulsa. His ashes will be buried next to his parents in Claremore.
(Tulsa World, Ricky Maranon, World Staff Writer, July 9, 2010)

Johnny L Sellers