Shoemaker: ‘It Was a Nod at the Finish’ : Ferdinand’s Jockey Came Oh So Close to Winning Big ‘Cap for the 12th Time

Bill Shoemaker stayed on the track just long enough after Sunday’s 50th running of the Santa Anita Handicap to watch Angel Cordero punch his fist into the air and yell in triumph.

The result of the photo finish had just been posted, and Cordero on Broad Brush had won the $1 million Big ‘Cap by the shortest of noses from Shoemaker aboard Ferdinand.

Shoemaker turned and, staring straight ahead, walked through the tunnel, across the parade ring and back to the jockeys’ room.

Along the way, he heard--and ignored--the usual comments from the fans.

“You ain’t got it no more, old man,” shouted someone who probably never had it in the first place.

“Thank you for trying, Shoe; thank you for trying.”

“Next time, Shoe baby.”

Then there were the autograph hunters. Three times on his way back to the jockeys’ room Shoemaker was stopped and asked to sign the day’s program. Each time he obliged. Each time without saying a word.

Losing a million-dollar race by a matter of inches tends to leave a rider tight-lipped. Forgotten, for the time being at least, was the fact that in 33 Santa Anita Handicap appearances Shoemaker has an astonishingly successful record of 11 wins, 7 seconds and 2 thirds.

For now, though, all he could think of was this one race. This one defeat.

“I thought he had it,” Shoemaker told trainer Charlie Whittingham, who had come up alongside. “But he (Broad Brush) came back on me.”

There was a moment of frustration, Shoemaker cussing as he pushed open the door to the jockeys’ quarters.

Then a moment of resignation.

“C’est la vie,” he said, shrugging.

Once in the room, he was greeted by shouts from fellow jockeys Eddie Delahoussaye and Pat Day, who had watched the race on the room’s television monitor.

Both agreed that they thought Shoemaker had won the race. Shoemaker wasn’t so sure.

“I’d have settled for a dead heat,” he said, smiling for the first time since the outcome was announced.

“He (Ferdinand) ran a good race. On the backside, he wanted to take off a little bit. I just waited and waited as long as I could.

“My horse came through. He fought back. It was just a nod, whoever had their nose down at the right time. It happened to be him (Broad Brush).”

Then Shoemaker walked over to the monitor to watch the replay himself.

“He’s finally relaxed now,” he said of the Kentucky Derby winner. “At the sixteenth pole, he grabbed hold of the bit and wanted to go. Now he’s relaxed; he’s OK now.”

And a little later: “My horse kept trying. I thought he was going to beat him (Broad Brush) down there.

“Everything was fine. Like I said, it was just a nod at the finish.”

Delahoussaye, who had ridden Ferdinand to an almost equally close second-place finish (to Snow Chief) in the Charles H. Strub Stakes exactly a month earlier while Shoemaker was recovering from surgery, said he and Day had tried to call the race.

“We knew it would be between him (Broad Brush) and Ferdinand at the end,” Delahoussaye said. “At the wire, we thought Shoe won it. Me and Pat Day, we lost our job as placing judges. We picked the inside horse, we put up the winner and we got fired.”

Added Day: “It was some consolation, though, that when we watched the rerun everybody agreed with us. Everybody but Angel.”

And from Delahoussaye again: “Angel knew he won. I don’t know how he knew he won, but he knew it.”

No he didn’t.

“At the wire I thought I’d won it,” Cordero said, “because in the photo you can see my body’s in front of Shoemaker’s body. I didn’t realize Ferdinand is a longer horse.

“At the wire, I went like that (signaling victory with his stick), but afterward I said to myself, ‘I don’t know.’ When they took so long (to declare the winner), I said, ‘I’ll take a dead heat. I’m desperate now. I’m embarrassed.’

“It’s very embarrassing if you think you win and you celebrate and all of a sudden you don’t win.”

But on Sunday, Cordero did win.

Just ask Shoemaker.