“You wake up every morning and the sun’s not bright, you’re not excited to be a part of life. There’s a feeling you don’t want to get out of bed. I felt like I’d died and lost everything.”CHRIS ANTLEY

IT took Charismatic just over two minutes to win the Kentucky Derby last weekend. For his rider Chris Antley, it marked the end of a decade-long journey to hell and back.

Antley, 33, fulfilled the life-long dream of every jockey in 1991 when he rode Strike the Gold for his first Derby victory. But in the years between, that dream became a nightmare.

Drugs, alcohol, weight problems and perhaps the greatest demon of them all, severe depression. Antley fought them all since bursting into racing as an 18-year-old phenom who former agent Drew Mollica calls “the Roy Hobbs of racing, a Natural.”

It was a see-saw battle. The highs – leading rider in New York, New Jersey and the nation, a record nine winners in one day, 64 straight days when he won at least one race – dueled with the lows – numerous injuries, two drug positives and continued substance abuse problems. For a long time the lows were winning.

“I had a great career,” Antley said. “I had everything in the world. But everything slowly slipped out of my hands.

“Everyone has that plague bothering them, that feeling of despair. The world isn’t all just roses. There are so many hidden things behind individuals. Some people just know how to play it better. Some can hide it longer.”

Last fall, unable to ride because his weight had ballooned to 145 pounds, Antley thought his career was over.

“I tried everything,” he said. “‘Flipping’ or ‘hurling’ (self-induced vomiting), which I’m not good at. Laxitives. Lasix (a drug that purges fluid from the body). Starving yourself. Binging. Physical running. Hours in the hot box. Anything that takes weight off.

“When you’re losing 5 to 7 pounds, up and down, every single day, when your body gets in a cycle of gaining and losing that amount of fluids and you’re not eating, it breaks down all your nutrients. It definitely takes a toll on one’s mind and soul.

“I felt worthless. I felt like a failure, knowing I couldn’t come back. I couldn’t get my weight down. I wasn’t a little jockey anymore.”

Antley packed his bags and left his southern California base to live with his father in South Carolina. For the first two months after he went home, Antley put racing out of his mind.

“Then my curiosity finally got the better of me and I watched a race on TV,” he said. “I really felt low. I used to do that but never again. I felt like I cheated myself through my whole career.

“The bedroom I stayed in, my dad put so much stuff in there from the different achievements through my career. That room was like a monument, and I had to wake up every morning and look at the walls. It was like having a disease I couldn’t get away from.

“I was in a depressed state of mind, a mid-life crisis,” Antley said. “You can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. You wake up every morning and the sun’s not bright, you’re not excited to be a part of life. There’s a feeling you don’t want to get out of bed.

“I felt like I’d died and lost everything.”

Antley’s father urged him to forget about being a jockey and find another career.

“He was trying to soothe me, to give me some hope of being worth something,” Antley said. “Then at one point I told my dad ‘I know what I’m going to do now. I’ll go back to racing or die trying to get there.'”

Antley had an ally in his comeback: “There was one person: God,” he said. “He’s in every one of us, you just have to find him. Something was growing inside of me without realizing how powerful it was.

“Sure I had money, and money is fine to get by with, but it doesn’t make you happy. It doesn’t give you love in your heart every day.”

Antley went to work, running all morning and afternoon and going on a non-carbohydrate diet until his weight gradually came down. By February, he was back riding at Santa Anita.

Getting the mount on Charismatic “all started when I won a race for Wayne Lukas at Hollywood Park,” he said. “He asked me to please look at a race the next day that happened to be the Lexington. He said Charismatic was really coming up to the race well and based on his breeding he didn’t think a mile and a quarter would be a problem. Would I consider riding him in the Derby?

“Just to be asked felt really good, especially by someone like Wayne Lukas. Charismatic broke the track record that day and won in the right style and that really excited me.

“I called up my dad and told him I had a mount in the Derby, to get ready, we’re going to Kentucky. ‘I hope you’re ready to get in the winner’s circle again,’ I told him. ‘This horse has my name written all over him, the first six letters in his name are Chris A.’

“I’m loving every minute of it. I’m living in a miracle, I really am. It couldn’t get any brighter than this. I’m back in racing again. I get to be a part of what I was. I’ve never felt this confident in myself, never appreciated or liked who I was until the last year and a half.

“The phone rings every 5 to 10 minutes from all over the country. When I won the Derby before, it was never like this. That makes me feel really good.

“I’m seeing other people’s reaction to my hurt, my pain. A lot of people can relate, and maybe in some way I’m expressing thoughts that will help someone else. That is the ultimate in life when you can help someone else from making the same mistakes.

“It’s not just hoopla to me, it’s peace. I feel like I owe so much back, I just want to do my part.

“You really know who your friends are when you have troubled times. I know I have a lot of people who care for me and not just because they have a $2 bet in the second race. They care about me as a person.

“Before I was blind to see that. I had a paranoia about letting someone be close and sharing my feelings. I was hiding behind a wall, never showing that kind of identity. It was insecurity I guess. I don’t have to live that way anymore. I just live as me and find peace in that.

“I wish you could jump inside my body right now to know how good I feel.

‘One question they asked me, just like they asked after my other Derby, was ‘What’s it like to win? In one word?’

“The first time I couldn’t say. But now I knew what the answer was. It was called ‘serene.’ I felt like a child who’s been running from monsters or been afraid or lost for a long time. And you finally found your mother, and she grabbed you.”