The Shoe Fit Perfectly in Horse Racing

When you think of historic race horses of the past, mounts who have meant much to the game, you think immediately of Man o’ War, Swaps, Secretariat, Count Fleet--and, of course, Shafter V.

Shafter V? A no-count, $3,000 claimer, a lifetime also-ran, candidate for a glue pot from the word go ?

Of course. Shafter V never won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness or Belmont--hardly ever got a call. But on April 20, 1949, Shafter V won one of the most important races in the annals of the turf--Willie Shoemaker’s first race.

No bells went off, the press didn’t rush to the winners’ circle. As a matter of fact, the stewards called the trainer on the carpet. “What’d you put that boy on that horse for? He almost got him beat!” they accused. “Almost got him beat? He won by three lengths!” shot back trainer George Reeves. “But he didn’t persevere with him. He just sat still,” grumbled the stewards. “Maybe that’s the way to ride a horse,” suggested Reeves.

It certainly was. That was 40,000 races, $125,000,000 and 8,800 winners ago for that rider.

If I were a race horse today, I would be very melancholy. Willie Shoemaker is retiring. He is on his farewell tour. Horses are losing one of their best friends.

Racing is losing its greatest champion. Willie Shoemaker on a horse is Babe Ruth at the bat, O.J. Simpson with the football, Ben Hogan on a fairway, Jack Nicklaus on a green, Horowitz at the piano, Caruso at the Met. He was a work of art. Tracy playing a priest, Hepburn playing a schoolmarm.

Nobody ever rode a horse with the skill and grace of Bill Shoemaker. The worst rogues on the track turned into swans when he got on them. It wasn’t a race, it was a romance. A love affair. Shoe didn’t ride a horse, he joined him. Most riders treat horses as if they were guards in slave labor camps. Shoe treated them as if he were asking them to dance.

The figures are staggering. Some years, Shoe won 30% of his races, others a mere 28 or so. He won 485 races in 1953, with 29% of the horses he climbed on. He won more than 8,800 in his career, but he finished second more than 6,000 times and third more than 5,000. Those figures are as safe as Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak or Bob Beamon’s 29-2 1/2 long jump.

They wrote poems about Earl Sande, and the most races he ever won in a year was 122. They said Laverne Fator sat a horse better than any man since Geronimo, but he won 143 races his best year. Of course, there was less racing those years--Sande won 33% of his races one year--but when the modern era broke, Shoemaker rode against the Eddie Arcaros, Ted Atkinsons, Johnny Longdens, Braulio Baezas, Bill Hartacks. He beat the best of them. Crack Eastern riders used to come out in his early career to get in on the easy money in California. Shoemaker sent them home talking to themselves. “They ought to call that place ‘Shoemaker Park,’ ” fumed one, flying home from Hollywood to Aqueduct.

He rode in 26 Kentucky Derbies, 11 Preaknesses and 11 Belmonts. He won four Derbies, two Preaknesses and five Belmonts. It would have been more, but Shoemaker had one flaw as a rider--loyalty. In those days (it’s no longer true), it was customary for California owners to overestimate their stock, to ship some local favorite, usually a Cal-bred who could run in the sunshine and dry tracks but who would need a cab to get a mile-and-a-quarter at Churchill Downs. They would want Shoemaker to ride their rocking horses. Shoe would sigh and agree.

I don’t believe there has been a case of Bill Shoemaker lodging a foul claim against a competitor. Bill gives new meaning to the word “stoic.” He could make a cigar store Indian look like a nervous wreck. It probably has to do with his childhood. Born blue and premature, his crib a shoe box, Shoe was so silent and withdrawn they didn’t know he could talk at all till he was 12. In 1931 in Fabens, Tex., there wasn’t much to talk about. Shoemaker never did become what you would call loquacious. He was one of those guys who would make you feel like you were babbling if you asked what time it was. He made Gary Cooper look noisy.

But he could communicate with horses. Most riders get horses to run out of fear. For Shoemaker, they seemed to do it out of love. He was on a horse as soon as he could sit up. He went right from the shoe box to horseback.

He could all but talk to horses. Rain moves some horses up, post position moves others. But Shoemaker moved up every horse he ever got on. Seven-to-one shots went off at 7-5 when Shoe was on them--because the bettor knew they automatically became three to seven lengths better.

He thinks Spectacular Bid was the best horse he ever got aboard. Well, he’s entitled to his opinion, but the vote here goes to the great golden chestnut, Swaps. The image fixed in most minds is of the ’55 Derby. Swaps was moving easily down the stretch when suddenly the powerful Nashua, the 6-5 favorite with the confident Arcaro on his back, began to take dead aim on the California upstart. Nashua drew up alongside--and suddenly Swaps went into gear. “Swooosh went Swaps,” Arcaro was later to say as his horse fell back, beaten by a length and a half. So far as California racing was concerned, it was the greatest bit of horsemanship since the Pony Express.

Shoemaker never made an enemy. He’s got a better image than the Pope. Around a racetrack for 40 years, that’s not difficult, that’s impossible. He’s made and lost two fortunes, but nobody’s ever heard him blame anybody.

So, they’re giving Shoe a farewell tour. They’re all the rage now; it hits Hollywood Park Friday night and will be celebrated with a rare night-racing card. The horses won’t be the only ones sorry to see him go. Racing without Shoe is like an Open without a Nicklaus, basketball without a Magic, or leave-blank-name-of-sport without Bo.

You can see why Shafter V was important. Suppose the horse had thrown a shoe, or lugged in or bled or got nosed out at the wire? They would have blamed the rider. Would that have been a national calamity? Look at it this way: No more than if Paul Revere’s horse had broken down. At Newton.