Mike Joyce is that cigar-smoking, selfie-taking guy on FanDuel TV with a seemingly endless string of wisecracks. He's a Southern Californian by way of Chicago and Wyoming whose irreverence on social media has prompted some high-brow horseplayers to go screaming not so gentle into that good night. Sans mutton chops and a deerstalker hat, Joyce is the closest thing American racing television has to the late John McCririck, who was a legend in the United Kingdom for his sometimes outrageous on-air antics.
Putting all of that aside, however, Joyce has made a serious commitment toward one of the most important causes in our sport: the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund, a 501(c)(3) charity offering financial support to 60 former Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse riders whose lives have been changed forever by an accident on horseback.
As a member of the PDJF board of directors since 2015, Joyce has helped elevate the charity's national profile, bringing a jockey karaoke fundraiser – a popular annual event in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. – to Del Mar. He's also played a major role in the success of the PDJF Telethon, an event inaugurated in 2018 that has raised more than $1.5 million in five years, thanks to the broadcast support of FanDuel TV (formerly TVG) and more recently the New York Racing Association's FOX Sports telecast, “America's Day at the Races.”
Joyce, the youngest of 13 children, is the son of Joe Joyce, a New Yorker who came to Chicago in 1977 to run Arlington Park for...
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