Dave Distel : For Shoemaker, 57 Candles, 8,773 Winners, and Still Counting

Bill Shoemaker celebrated a birthday Friday. That’s nothing new, of course. He has had one every year now for 57 consecutive years.

What’s amazing and special about Shoemaker is how he celebrates.

Most fellows celebrating 57th birthdays take the kids (or grandkids) to the beach or zoo or maybe play a round of golf. If they have to go to work, they go to an air-conditioned office and sit behind a desk.

None of the above applied to our forever young birthday boy Friday.

Bill Shoemaker went to work at Del Mar Race Track. He spent his birthday riding horses in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth races. And then he caught a red-eye to Toronto, where he will ride Most Welcome in today’s Arlington Million at Woodbine. And he will be back at Del Mar with four mounts on Sunday.

Obviously, this man has not been slowed much by the years.

OK, maybe a little bit.

“I used to ride nine races a day,” he said Friday, “and 12 on Sunday . . . at Caliente.”

But that was eons ago. That was when he was an apprentice. That was 1949, for heaven’s sake.

Here it is, 1988, and there he was in the jockeys’ room, playing a card game called race horse rummy and puffing on a cigar. It was 30 minutes until the first post time, and he had time to kill. After all, he was “off” until the fourth race. That was about the extent of his birthday holiday.

Bill Shoemaker was born in 1931. For perspective, consider that Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks and Eddie Mathews were born the same year. Mays was the last of those fellows to retire, and he has been out of baseball for 15 years.

Given that riding a race horse is every bit as physically and mentally demanding as playing baseball, Shoemaker’s longevity is absolutely unbelievable.

The man himself is a quiet type, not prone to highs or lows. Conversations run to “yups” and “nopes.” He is not one to explore with much profundity this miraculous run through the ages, which has enabled him to set records no jockey will likely ever approach.

Why, he was asked, has he been able to extend his career beyond when most athletes have retreated to reclining chairs?

“One of the things is that I’ve never had a weight problem,” he said. “And I’ve been lucky with injuries. I was riding 18 years before I really got injured. And riding good horses always helps.”

The conversation kept coming back to good horses, as if good horses have made Bill Shoemaker. There is likely more truth in the reverse, that The Shoe makes horses good . . . or at least better. A man does not get horses such as Swaps, Spectacular Bid, Round Table, Ack Ack and Ferdinand if he cannot take them up to and beyond their potential.

Shoemaker is only making this whirlwind trek to Toronto because he was the jockey most welcomed on Most Welcome’s back.

And he is returning so quickly because Charlie Whittingham wants him on Lively One in the Del Mar Derby. It will be a lively one on Lively One, and that combination will likely go off as the favorite.

Of course, winning is nothing new to Shoe. He has ridden 8,773 winners, 993 of them in stakes races, 249 in stakes races worth $100,000 or more. This is a money man.

But you sense it is much more than money.

“I enjoy riding,” he said, “and I enjoy being in the jocks’ room with all the guys.”

Most are young enough to be his sons, and a few are young enough to be his grandsons.

And yet he keeps on going. He doesn’t do anything special, he said, to stay fit. Riding every day does it. And he rides darn near every day.

And why not?

You think a golfer would retire if he kept winning the U.S. Open? Or a tennis player if he kept on winning Wimbledon? Or a pitcher if he kept winning the Cy Young Award?

That’s the thing with Shoemaker. Father Time simply has not come along and tapped him on the shoulder with hints that maybe he is too old for this type of thing. He keeps on going because he has never seen a yellow light, much less a red.

And he keeps on going at the highest level of his sport. There is no seniors tour for jockeys. There are no old-timers games. Shoe goes head-to-head with 25-year-olds in their prime. Mickey Mantle could not play baseball at 57, because Mickey Mantle could not hit Roger Clemens at 57. Basically, that’s what Bill Shoemaker is doing at 57 . . . still hitting Roger Clemens.

Literally, only heaven knows how much longer this marvel will remain marvelous.

He doesn’t know.

“When I started out,” he said, “I figured I’d be very happy if I could ride five years. Suddenly, it became 20 years and 30 years, and now it’s almost 40 years. You just never know.”

One of these days, he will walk away from riding.

“I’ll probably train some horses,” he said. “I enjoy being around here in the morning. I like that part of it too.”

There seems to be nothing about this sport, and livelihood, that he does not enjoy. I was going to ask him if maybe he might just keep on riding forever, and then realized what a stupid question it would be.

He already has.