By Murray Evans
The Associated Press

FLORENCE - Even though her friends teased her about it, Randi Rowland spent much of her summer vacations waking up at 5 a.m. so she could spend time at the racetrack with her father, jockey Michael Rowland.

"When I think of the racetrack, I think of him," she said Wednesday at Turfway Park during a memorial service for her father. "He loved every part of it - the horses, the racing, the people. It was business, and that was what he loved."

About 400 people - other jockeys, trainers, horsemen and track patrons - gathered for the service in a dining room.

Michael Rowland, 41, died early Monday at University Hospital, five days after he suffered head injuries in a spill during a claiming race at Turfway Park. Flags at the track flew at half-staff Wednesday.

Speaker after speaker talked about Rowland's love of racing, guitar playing and practical jokes. Floral displays in the room included a guitar and jockey silks.

His sister, Tracy Samuelson, told about riding in a vehicle on a highway with Rowland in 1988.

"He introduced me to the very first paint gun I ever saw," she said.

"He aimed it at a car that was exiting off the freeway. He pulled the trigger, and I saw a red splatter on the windshield. I was panicking, and he was laughing hysterically. He told me it was only a pellet of paint, and he assured me that he only fired as they were exiting."

Rowland was riding World Trade when the horse broke a front leg and collapsed on the first turn of the $13,900 claiming race. The horse collided with two other horses; two other jockeys received minor injuries.

Rowland was the third rider to die at a Kentucky track, according to the Jockeys' Guild, and the first since 1976. The last American jockey death came in 2001, when Arnold Ruiz died from injuries after a spill at Beulah Park in Grove City, Ohio, according to the guild.

Rowland, a native of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., had 3,998 career wins and was the leading jockey at Thistledown, a racetrack near Cleveland where he won 29 meet titles. His first win came in 1979.

Samuelson noted how close her brother was to the 4,000-win mark and closed her remarks with a recent story.

"His 8-year-old daughter Sara said on Monday he was riding God's horses now," Samuelson said. "Somehow I feel Secretariat was first in line."

Rowland is survived by his wife, Tammy - a horse trainer - and daughters Sara, Farren, 15, and Randi, 20.